Return
by Kirayoshi
Summary: Buffy's sacrifce was just the end of Act One©©© Now Complete, with a kick-ass epilogue by Mad-Hamlet
1. The Devil's Best Trick

  
Disclaimer;  
Joss owns them, and after "The Gift", we must trust that he knows what he's doing. Oh, and the sharp-eyed among you may recognize two characters owned by DC Comics, and created by Neil Gaiman.  
  
Author's note;  
This is my alternate take on how things go after the season five cliffhanger from Hell. Spoilers for "The Gift". Duh.  
  
Archives;  
Want, take, have.  
  
Feedback;  
Yes please. Jim_D_Means@prodigy.net  
  
Rating;  
PG-13(for angst)  
  
Summary;  
The Slayer's final sacrifice was just the end of Act 1.  
  
  
========  
Return  
By Kirayoshi  
========  
  
  
Chapter One  
The Devil's Best Trick  
========  
"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."   
--Kevin Spacey, "The Usual Suspects"  
========  
  
She remembered standing on the scaffold.  
  
Her enemy was defeated, but the damage had been done. Her sister's blood had been spilled. Her enemy had used that blood to unleash Hell. The portal her enemy had opened threatened all creation. There was only one way to stop it.  
  
She looked at her sister one last time. She knew what was going to happen, what she had to do, and she prayed that Giles would be there to look after her. The realization that she would never see her again tore at her heart, but there was no other way.  
  
Her death was her gift to her sister. To her friends. To the world.  
  
She said a final goodbye to her sister. She thought of Willow. She took comfort that her beloved would survive.  
  
She dived off the scaffold, and plummeted into the portal.  
  
She held onto the power, and let it course through her, until her body couldn't stand another jolt. And still she hung on. All the pain in the world wracked her frame, fried her synapses, stopped her heart, but still she held on. She held on for a few seconds, a few moments.  
  
She held on for the rest of her life.  
  
And she fell...  
  
And she fell...  
  
========  
  
There is a world where we spend a third of our lives. It is the world where we live when we are asleep. It is the realm of the Dreaming. Dreams are born here, and dreamers venture on the shores of the Dreaming every night.  
  
It was here where Dream, alias Morpheus, held his power. But even the lord of the Dreaming was on occasion disturbed from his sleep.  
  
"Morpheus!" a slim, pale skinned young woman dressed in a white silk tank top and leather pants shouted as she barged into the palatial home of the lord of the Dreaming. "I need some help here!"  
  
Dream strode down the stairs of his ever-changing main hallway, inhumanly thin and regal, his skin chalk white, his eyes like obsidian spheres. "What brings you here, my sister?" he greeted the interloper.  
  
"I'm sorry, bro," the goth-chick answered hastily, fingering the large silver ankh pendant she constantly wore around her neck. "But I need some help here. Someone's soul is out there, untethered from her body."  
  
"What is it to me?" Morpheus brushed his sister's statement aside. "The souls of the departed are your domain, not mine."  
  
Death shook her head, trying to explain her plight. "She wasn't meant to die at this time. She is a powerful force for good in the world, and her time hadn't come yet."  
  
Dream turned and regarded his sister with a jaded yet concerned eye. "You have never requested my help in restoring a lost soul, Death. This one must be important indeed. What do you want of me?"  
  
"I can locate the soul, and anchor it to the world somehow," Death answered, "but her desire to live must be restored. All I need from you, brother, is a dream..."  
  
========  
  
"Wake up, Ice Princess," a hand jostled her from her sleep, and she opened her eyes reluctantly. "You're already in the doghouse with Coach Stevens about being late for rehearsal." Buffy Anne Summers roused from her bed, stretched herself, and vaguely tried to recall that bizarre dream that had disturbed her. Something about a madwoman named Glory. And a Key.  
  
She dressed, selecting the red satin unitard for her routine. She smiled at her roommate, saying, "Let's do it, Tara."  
  
"Right behind you," her colleague answered. Buffy hadn't really made friends with the others in the skater's tour, but that didn't bother her. They respected each other, that's all that mattered. That, and the show.  
  
The dress rehearsal began, as the skaters prepared for their trial entrances. She assumed her pose, as the P. A. announced, "Ladies and gentlemen, presenting the heroines of the 1998 Winter Olympics at Nagano, Japan, Bronze medalist Michelle Kwan!" The Asian-American glided out onto the rink. "Silver medalist Tara Lipinski!" The spritely blond teen took her place beside Michelle. "And Gold medal winner, Buffy Anne Summers!" Buffy skated out with speed, grace and confidence, finishing with a neat double axle before standing between her two teammates. "Show off," Michelle commented acidicly.  
  
The rehearsal went off without a hitch, until Buffy glanced at the almost-empty stands. She saw someone, a dowdy young woman in a grey sweater and faded jeans. The red of her hair caught her eye, stirring a strange memory. Something about that hair, those sad green eyes, a presence that haunted the Skater...  
  
She lost her concentration and collided with the wall. Coach Stevens threw his hands up in defeat, as he cut the rehearsal short and called for Buffy to meet him.  
  
Buffy glared hard at her coach, who wanted nothing more than to take her down a peg. "Summers," he said gruffly, "I want you off the program tonight. You've obviously got something else on your mind, I won't have you endangering yourself in front of an audience. Get yourself killed on your own time."  
  
"What are you talking about, Stevens?" Buffy said angrily. "I'm the top draw for tonight's show, you know that. You can't just take me off the line-up!"  
  
"Can and did, Buffy," he answered. "Check your contract, you'll find I can do that. Besides, your star's been falling ever since that little snafu with your clothing line for Wal-Mart."  
  
"How the hell was I supposed to know the company was using slave labor?" she shouted.  
  
"You put your name on the product, Summers," he chuckled mirthlessly, "you should have found out something about the company. You're not as loved as you seem to think you are. Not by the public, nor by your fellow stars. In fact, once this leg of the tour is over, I want you to clear out your things. You're finished with this tour."  
  
Buffy's eyes bored into him, but he remained unmoving. She had been aware of her waning popularity on the skating circuit, but hadn't thought it was that bad. She gave Stevens her middle finger, hissing, "Why wait for this leg to finish? I'll clear out now! I quit, asshole!"  
  
"I have no problem with that," Stevens answered tonelessly. He had taken his fill of that primadonna's bellyaching. And from the complaints that her fellow skaters had filed against her, he wasn't alone. Buffy wasn't even the star draw anymore, as the more personable Michelle and Tara had taken the spotlight.  
  
Buffy Summers' star had faded. Her fifteen minutes were up. She would not be missed.  
  
========  
  
When Buffy emptied her locker and grabbed her things, she glanced around the stadium one last time, looking for the woman in the stands. The stands were now empty, save for janitors and stadium security. She glanced back at Michelle, who was rehearsing a new routine with Scott Hamilton. Her fellow skaters didn't even have time to say goodbye. If they did, she realized, they wouldn't make the effort.  
  
The now unemployed skater couldn't shake that image of a red haired woman in the stands out of her head. She felt that she should know her, that this woman was important to her in a primal way that she couldn't understand. The redhead had stirred something deep in her, something that she didn't understand.  
  
But she didn't have time to deal in abstracts. She had to call her agent. She pulled a cel-phone out of her purse and started to dial. As she walked with the phone in her hand, she didn't pay attention, and neatly tripped over a homeless man sitting on the sidewalk.   
  
"HEY!" the homeless man shouted at her. "Watch where you're frickin' goin'!" Buffy turned around to say something nasty to the stranger who shouted drunkenly at her. She was about to tell him off, to shout back at him, when she looked at him for the first time. Really looked at him.   
  
The chocolate-brown eyes, the wavy black hair, the face that was meant to laugh, to smile.  
  
A name came unbidden to her mind. Xander. Xander Harris.  
  
And the redhaired woman she saw running from the arena. Willow Rosenberg.  
  
She stumbled backward, trying not to faint, flailing desperately for something to hold her up. This wasn't right. This wasn't her world, it couldn't be. She never met these people before, she didn't live her, but she knew who these people were. She knew that the homeless man was a capable construction worker and a friend who would defend her with his last breath. And the timid young woman was a powerful witch with a strength that few could imagine.  
  
But the redhead was a mousy woman, scared of her own shadow. And the young man a homeless wretch. This wasn't right, a voice in her head screamed. This isn't who you are, Buffy Summers!  
  
Buffy ran. That's all she could manage somehow. She had to get away from the homeless man, from the mousy woman. She ran. Unheeding of her surroundings she ran. She ran until her legs threatened to give out, until her lungs almost burst from the exertion. She ran until she literally couldn't run any further. She then collapsed, her arms over cold marble, her breath in short gasps. Having the strength for nothing else, she wept.  
  
"What the hell are you doing here?"  
  
The voice shouting at her stirred her from her anguish. She looked around, surveying her surroundings. A cemetary. She glanced back to the marble she had been leaning against. A tombstone. She found herself reading the inscription on the stone, and blanched at the sight;  
  
Joyce Summers  
Beloved mother  
1961 -- 2001  
  
"Mom," she whispered, as she staggered to her feet. "My God, Mom!"  
  
"I'm sure she'd be flattered that you remembered," the angry voice behind her spat out at her. Buffy spun on her heel to see her accuser. Dawn Summers stood there, a rose in her hand. Buffy wanted to hold her in her arms, to assure herself that she wasn't going insane. But the cold glare from Dawn's eyes made it clear that she would not allow Buffy to touch her, now or ever.   
  
"Where the hell were you when they buried her?" Dawn asked as she bent down to place the rose on the grave. "Hell, where were you when she was dying? She cried out your name on her deathbed, but you weren't there!"  
  
"Dawn!" Buffy cried out, "I'm sorry, I had no idea!"  
  
"Yeah, well too damn late!" Dawn shot back at her. "You wanted to be rid of her, of all of us! You weren't there for any of us, not when Mom and Dad broke up, not when we moved her to Sunnyhell! The only thing that mattered to you was your damn Olympic skating! Yeah, well congratulations, Buffy! You got your damn medal, your ice shows, your name up in lights!"  
  
"That's not what I wanted, Dawn," Buffy wailed as she tried to take her sister's arm. "I want what we had, what we were. I'm sorry, Dawn. For everything."  
  
Dawn stood before Buffy for five seconds, the only sound heard being the rustling of poplar leaves around the cemetary. Dawn then glowered at Buffy, and her hand flew hard into Buffy's face.  
  
"All I want out of you, Buffy Summers," Dawn yelled, "is to know that you will never contact me as long as I live. You got out of my life, Buffy. Stay out!" Dawn ran away from Buffy, and all the former medalist could do was watch her leave forever.  
  
Buffy stood alone in the cemetary, her desolation consuming her. Her mother was dead. Her sister despised her. Her career as a professional skater was, for what little it was, over. And she had not the slightest idea who she was.  
  
"Well, well, well," a mellow voice intoned around her. "Isn't this just lovely?" Buffy lifted her head, her cheek red from her sister's slap, and beheld the figure standing before her. An attractive woman with chestnut hair, wearing a silken red dress. Her bearing and her manner spoke of a sense of superiority, and the gleam in her eyes spoke of a strange form of madness.  
  
"Who are you?" Buffy asked the stranger.  
  
The stranger laughed heartily at the sad young blond. "Who am I? Why don't you start with figuring out who you are, then work your way up from there?"  
  
"What are you doing here?"  
  
"I'm just watching you fall apart, little skater," the woman smiled. "So this is how a celebrity falls. You strive hard, sacrificing family and friends, all that ever mattered to you in life, to achieve the highest honor you can aspire to, then bang, your fifteen minutes are up and you spend the rest of your life trying to recapture your former glory."  
  
Glory. That one word stirred something in Buffy's memory. She glared at her nemesis, for she knew that's what this strange woman was, and smiled. "You're Glory. You're the one who tried to kill my sister! You used her blood to open a portal to Hell, to open the Hellmouth!"  
  
Glory cast a puzzling look at Buffy. "Hellmouth? Oh, yes, that little delusion of yours. You think I'm real, you think I'm standing right in front of you. Got a secret to tell you, Buffy," she giggled. "It's all in your mind, Buffy. I'm not here."  
  
"But you are here," Buffy denied the woman feebly. "I can't be imagining all this!"  
  
"Oh but you are, my child," Glory scoffed the disturbed young woman. "I mean, how else do I know you so well? I'm just a part of your little delusion. That's all this is, after all. Your little fantasy world where you no longer have to look at the miserable person you are. You're not just a former athlete, a struggling talent on the professional circuit, but a great hero. The Chosen One, the Slayer. Trust me, dollface, no one would have chosen you for anything!"  
  
"Look at yourself," Glory continued, taunting the fallen young woman, "a twenty-year-old woman who achieves success for a short period, but now struggles to relive that moment where you actually succeeded in life. A woman who gave up family and friends to make it to the Gold, only to find that they moved on without her, that she is no longer welcome in their lives. The day your mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor, you were giving a press conference discussing your joining the Stars On Ice tour. The day she went under the knife, you were making arrangements to sell clothes with your name on them at WalMart. The day she died, you were in court, denying that you knew about the slave labor that was making your clothing. You've become nothing but a shallow, spiteful person, living on your former fame. And you hate that. You hate the loneliness, the solitude, the knowledge that no one would miss you if you died right now." Each hateful word cut into her heart, for she knew that they were the truth. She had accomplished nothing, and now she never would.  
  
"You still have that knife in your purse, don't you?" Glory asked soothingly. Buffy nodded blankly, taking the razor sharp knife out of her purse. "No one will care, you know. Just one quick swipe over the wrist, and it'll be all over." Buffy dumbly took the knife's handle in her right hand, and held the blade over her left wrist. She closed her eyes, and felt a strange peace steal over her. Soon, there would be nothing. No one would really mourn, no one would remember her. And Dawn would finally put her hatred behind her.  
  
Dawn. Her sister.  
  
A child who only existed because of magic.  
  
Buffy slowly let go of the blade, letting it clatter to the ground. She looked at the dark form of Glory, taking a grim satisfaction at watching the triumphant smile fade from her face. A thousand memories flooded her mind, assailed her soul. Dark and light, joy and sorrow, all revealed themselves in Buffy's mind. And all these memories, Buffy knew to be true, and with that knowledge came epiphany. There was only one reaction that Buffy could envision.  
  
She laughed almost hysterically. "Oh, hohoho, nice try, Glory. You almost had me there. But this world, this is the lie. My world is the truth. And in my world, Glory," Buffy shouted out at her enemy, "you're dead!"  
  
Glory snarled at Buffy, shouting back at her, "Well, so are you! Remember, you died to shut the portal I created!"  
  
"I can live with that," Buffy stated simply.  
  
Glory screamed with rage, her final effort to destroy the Slayer's soul ending in failure. She raised her arms over her head, her hands balled into fists, and the ground shook. The distance seemed to shimmer, to crumble away, as Glory's created reality crashed down around them. "Too late, Slayer!" Glory screamed. "I may be going down, but I'll take you with me!" The ground beneath them split in two, leaving an enormous crevasse between Buffy and Glory. The mad goddess laughed, as Buffy struggled to regain her footing under the shaky ground beneath her.  
  
Buffy looked into the abyss that formed near her feet, the endless descent into blackness, into-- she didn't know what. She raised her head, regarding the defeated Glory with a serene smile. "It's a leap of faith," she said simply.  
  
And she stepped forward into the abyss.  
  
And she fell...  
  
And she fell...  
  
========  
  
"Good dream, bro," Death nodded, smiling happily. "Her soul has been refreshed, now her life will continue."  
  
"May I ask how, sister dear?" Morpheus asked, lifting his eyes from his dream window.  
  
"It'll be tricky, that's all I can tell you," Death shrugged her shoulders. "As of now, it's out of my hands. All I know is that she'll survive. And hopefully she'll be better prepared for living the second part of her life." Death and Dream sat silently, contemplating Buffy's future. There was no guarantee that her life would be easy, or that she would survive the ordeal of her second birth. But knowing her spirit, and knowing that she would fight against the darkness every step of the way, the two Endless would be more than willing to place their bets on Buffy Summers.  
  
"Your death was your gift, Buffy," Death stated solemnly. "Now it's my turn to give you a gift. A gift I almost never give anyone else. A second chance."  
  



	2. Wonderful

Disclaimers in chapter 1  
  
  
Chapter 2  
Wonderful  
  
========  
I close my eyes when I get too sad,  
I think thoughts that I know are bad,  
Close my eyes and I count to ten,  
Hope it's over when I open them.  
  
I want the things that I had before,  
Like a Star Wars poster on my bedroom door;  
I wish I could count to ten,  
Make everything be wonderful again.  
  
Promises mean everything when you're little,  
And the world's so big.  
I just don't understand how  
You can smile with all those tears in your eyes,  
Tell me everything is wonderful now.  
  
--Everclear  
"Wonderful"  
  
Dawn sat in the waiting room of the law office, thumbing through the four-month old People magazine for the sixteenth time. She kept gravitating to the movie review section, where their critic gave a positive review to the movie "Spy Kids". She threw the magazine away in disgust; when the commercials for "Spy Kids" first aired on television, Dawn had wanted more than anything to see it. Her mom had promised to take her to see it when it premiered. Two weeks before it opened, she and Buffy buried their mother.  
  
Two weeks later, Buffy had promised to take her to see "Spy Kids", once the situation with Glory had been resolved. Now Buffy was dead as well.  
  
And she was waiting outside a law office where her father was trying to claim custody of her, away from Rupert Giles, the man who had taken care of her for the last month, after Buffy died. Considering that her so-called 'father' had all but abandoned his family five years ago, she had no desire to go anywhere with him. Then there was the issue that Hank Summers had never actually met her, considering that the monks who 'created' her and everyone's memories of her only a year ago, long after he abdicated his position as father.  
  
Now, three months after he ignored her mom's death, one month after Buffy's funeral had passed without so much as a condolence card from him, Hank Summers was in town, planning to take her to Los Angeles, away from Giles. He offered to take her to see "Spy Kids", but she turned the offer down.  
  
Dawn never wanted to see "Spy Kids" as long as she lived. And she sure as hell never wanted to see it with Hank.  
  
========  
  
"Thank you for meeting me here, Mr. Giles," Hank Summers greeted Giles with a warm handshake, which was returned stiffly. "Perhaps we can come to an arrangement without bringing the lawyers into it.  
  
"I don't want to make this difficult, Mr. Giles," Hank said as he sat down at the conference table. Giles sat opposite him, a baleful look coloring his normally stoic features. "May I call you Rupert? I mean, we can all be friends here."  
  
"Mr. Summers," Giles regarded his opponent in this matter with a glower that would intimidate a Jachyra demon, "few people call me Rupert. My friends call me simply Giles. And if I may dispel your misunderstanding of this situation, you are not now, nor shall you ever be, anything that could ever be mistaken for my friend."  
  
Hank sat back, hiding his startlement; when he first met Rupert Giles, he seemed to have the word 'pushover' written across his brow. He thought he had appraised his adversary in this matter; a studious, calm Brit with no steel in his spine. Now he was no longer certain. He decided to go for the throat.  
  
"Very well, Mr. Giles," Hank answered, "then let's not b.s. each other anymore. My reason for coming here is simple. Dawn is my daughter. She is the only family I have left. I feel that it would be beneficial for both of us if I were to take custody of her as soon as possible."  
  
Giles leaned forward in his seat. "Funny, I believe it would be in Dawn's best interest if you were to crawl back under the rock that spawned you and stayed the hell out of her life!"  
  
"Mr. Giles," Hank struggled mightily to keep a veneer of control over his emotions, "I don't understand this hostility you seem to have toward me."  
  
"You don't understand, Mr. Summers?" Giles asked. "Let me enlighten you. In the last three years, you have had minimal contact with either Dawn or Buffy." Not exactly the truth, Giles admitted to himself, considering that Dawn only existed for the last year. But considering that the monks that created her had seeded the minds of all those were necessary to maintain that fiction with memories of her, it made perfect sense that Hank would remember her as well. And the fact that no one's memories of Dawn included any evidence that Hank was a part of her life since the Summers women first moved to Sunnydale, well, that sadly made perfect sense, and was true to Hank's character.  
  
"Look, buddy," Hank replied, his anger fueling his resolve to get Dawn for himself, "you can blame Joyce for that. She practically threatened to hand me my balls if I ever came near them again!"  
  
"I was unaware you had any, Mr. Summers," Giles was still the master at calm expression, even though his insides were seething with a desire to see how high this fat fool would bounce off the table. "Joyce and I have maintained a close friendship over the last few years of her life, given my status as one of Buffy's teachers, and an informal mentor to her. In that time, Joyce has often complained that you chose to sever all ties between yourself and your girls. She had given you every opportunity to have a relationship with Buffy and Dawn, but you chose to neglect them. It was you, Mr. Summers, not Joyce who was responsible for that gulf. And to blame her now, after her death, is reprehensible. Especially since you didn't even choose to contact Buffy and Dawn after their mother's death. And, now that I think of it, where were you when your eldest daughter was buried?"  
  
"Buffy made it clear that she didn't want me in her life, Mr Giles," Hank glowered from across the table, "and I had no choice to respect her decision. She was a grown woman, wasn't she?"  
  
"Only for the last two years, Mr. Summers," Giles glowered back, fire flashing in his eyes, "and she wasn't the one who severed the relationship. You abandoned her and Dawn, and I won't give you the opportunity to abandon Dawn again."  
  
"Look, buddy," Hank snarled at his adversary, "you don't have any say in the matter. I'm taking Dawn away from here, and making sure that Buffy's freak friends don't come near her. Get it? I only wish that I could have gotten here sooner before Buffy had that two months with her. I may be able to undo the damage that Buffy's already done, but I'll be damned if I let that loser Xander or those two dykes near her again!"  
  
Giles fought hard to restrain the Ripper within in him, to rein in his growing desire to bounce this fat fool off of every wall in the office. "I won't even bother to defend Buffy's friends against you, since you are patently beneath them. However, I will confess that one of her friends, Willow to be exact, had on occasion performed slightly illegal acts. Computer hacking, for a start." He produced a folder, displaying some forms and documents. "She's the redhaired 'dyke', in case you were wondering. And she found some interesting facts about you, Mr. Summers. For example, it seems that you have some debts incurred from gambling, let's see," he searched his papers for the proper figures, "Ah yes, a recent horse race. You took out a loan to place a sizable bet on a 'sure thing'. Your 'sure thing' pulled up lame in the first lap." He regarded Hank's face, enjoying the sheen of sweat that was forming on his brow. "What did you have in mind, Hank? Planned on getting your hands on Dawn's trust fund?"  
  
Hank sputtered at the accusation. "If you think that I would even consider touching that $15,000, you don't know me at all!"  
  
"And how did you know how much was in the trust fund?" Giles accused. "You hadn't spoken once to Joyce, Buffy or Dawn in the last year, and Joyce only set up the trust fund two months prior to her death, after the initial tumor scare!"  
  
Hank stared silently at Giles, who only looked back at him with cold contempt in his eyes. He sagged his shoulders as the gaunt Englishman glared at him. "Look, Mr. Giles, I've had some financial reversals, sure, but hey, who hasn't? I'll get back on my feet, no problem. Just give me a chance--"  
  
Hank suddenly found his face flattened against wood paneling, as Giles threw him hard against the wall. He had heard more than enough from this idiot. "You disgust me, Hank Summers! I am amazed that such a loathsome individual as yourself could ever be the father of a fine woman like Buffy Summers!" He grabbed Hank's arm, wrenching it painfully behind his back, twisting hard enough to nearly break bones. "What was the plan, Summers? Loot Dawn's trust fund and then abandon her? I won't give you the chance to do that, Summers! Do you hear me?" When Hank didn't reply fast enough, Giles twisted his arm harder. "DO YOU HEAR ME?"  
  
One month ago, Rupert Giles had strangled an innocent man named Ben, a man who's only crime was that he had been used as a host form for the goddess Glory. And this was someone he had grown to respect. Hank, he didn't even have respect to back him up. And now, as Giles knee was grinding hard into his back, Hank Summers was forced to realize that he had sorely misjudged Rupert Giles.  
  
"Here's how we will resolve this matter, Mr. Summers," Giles hissed, spitting out the man's name like it was the most vile of epitaphs. "You will leave this office, return to your hotel, pack your things and board the next available plane out of Sunnydale. You will not seek to contact Dawn Summers, ever, under any circumstances. You gave up any rights you ever had to call her your daughter. As far as she is concerned you are dead. And if I find out that you have gone against my orders in this matter, well, even if the authorities ever find your remains, they won't be able to identify them. Do I make myself clear?"  
  
Giles loosened his grip enough for Hank to look at his face. Hank looked into Giles' eyes, for any sign that he was bluffing. He found none, and lowered his head in defeat. "As crystal, Mr Giles," he murmured. "As crystal."  
  
Giles threw Hank against the wall one last time, for good measure. "Get out of my sight," Giles muttered harshly, without any show of emotion. He straightened the lapels of his tweed jacket, and left the office, and the shattered man behind him.  
  
He took Dawn silently by the hand and the two of them left for Giles's car. Giles turned quietly toward Dawn, saying, "I am sorry that you had to bear any witness to what had happened. I am aware that he is your father, but..."  
  
"Funny, I'm not," Dawn snorted angrily at Giles. "He made his choice. I don't really matter to him. I'm just sorry that I didn't get a lick in at him." It saddened Giles a little to hear Dawn speak of her father with such contempt, but he sagely recalled that the man had brought this upon himself.  
  
"So, Dawn," Giles asked, "where to now?"  
  
"How about England?" Dawn suggested softly. Giles was taken aback at her suggestion. Dawn looked up at the former librarian's face, saying, "Weren't you offered a position on the Watcher's Council? I heard you talking to Willow and Tara about it the other day."  
  
Giles regarded the young woman cautiously. So much like her older sister, always listening when she wasn't supposed to. "I was offered a position on the Watcher's Council, yes," Giles admitted. "But I didn't want to risk losing custody of you. And I certainly have no intention of uprooting you so abruptly from your life here in Sunnydale."  
  
"My life?" Dawn harrumphed. "No one lives in Sunnydale, Giles. They just die here. Mom died here. Buffy died here. I don't want to die here." She looked Giles straight in the eyes, and Giles could see the tears that marred her cheeks. "Xander's talking about opening a construction company in Seattle and moving there with Anya. Willow and Tara'll probably move away soon. There's nothing here for us. I can't live here, Giles." She cried openly now, pleading with the Watcher. "Wherever we live, whatever happens next, let's do it as far from this hell as possible."  
  
Giles wrapped his arms around her fiercely, driven by a paternal need to protect her from all horrors, from without as well as from within. "Yes, Dawn," he promised, "we will leave this town." He let her cry on his shoulder a while longer, before offering to take her out for some ice cream. Not that ice cream would cure all their ills, but there was something in a simple pleasure, what Buffy frequently referred to as 'comfort food', that helped to put things into perspective.   
  
He knew that simply leaving the place where Dawn lost her family wouldn't solve all her anxieties, wouldn't calm all her fears. But perhaps, it would provide them both with a fresh start.  
  
========  
  
He scanned the surroundings, his eyes level and unreadable, as he sought the familiar cave opening. After locating it, he headed for the cave slowly, methodically. This was madness, he knew that, but he had reconciled himself to this course of action. It was the only way to make right what had gone wrong.  
  
He knew now the flaw in the original experiments. Using body parts from Hostiles, trying to create a perfect soldier from spare parts, hotwired together with computer components. Sheer folly. Only a single body, one of great strength would survive the rigors of the restoration process. But it had to be human, not demon. You can't expect human reactions or human repsonses from something that was never human to begin with.  
  
But the new test body was fully human. Broken, damaged, but still human. It would work with her.  
  
He located the entrance, hidden to resemble the rock wall of the cave. Voice code and password were required. He gave his name, and then the password; "A Modern Prometheus."  
  
The door opened slowly, and he entered the familiar passageway. He thought he would never enter   
this room again. And he certainly never thought that the facility would be active as it was now. Scientists scurried to and fro, under the baleful electronic eye of a security camera. The senior scientist for the orginaztion turned and saw the young man who entered the lab. "Ah, you've arrived," he said, as he offered the young man a handshake.   
  
"I wish that the reunion was under kinder circumstances," the young soldier replied. "But if I can aid in the success of your mission, consider me at your disposal."  
  
"Be assured, my son, you're hardly disposable in this venture," the scientist assured him. "Welcome back to the Initiative, Lieutenant Riley Finn."  
  
========  
  
He stood alone, a solitary figure in a desert. Level sands stretching far from horizon to horizon. He felt that he should be sweltering in his tweed jacket, but somehow felt a chill in his very soul. Not knowing where he was, uncertain of direction in the blinding sun, he decided to walk in one direction, hoping to find a clue to his whereabouts.  
  
Preferably before dehydration became an issue.  
  
Bathically, he recalled the song, "Horse with No Name" by the sixties band America, and the comment by a stand-up comic; "You're in the desert, there's nothing else to do, name the darn horse!"  
  
He kept his head looking forward, neither looking to his right nor his left. He walked with purpose, somehow intuiting that this was the proper direction for him to travel. So he was surprised when, after a few minutes of walking, he no longer stood in the desert, but in a cemetary. Glancing to the left, he saw an all-too familiar stone, and fought back a wave off sorrow and anger as he read the inscription;  
  
Buffy Anne Summers  
Born 1981 Died 2001  
She Saved The World.  
A Lot  
  
"Too young," he whispered, as grief threatened to consume him. "Too damn young." Not for the first time, he cursed himself for his role in her life. If he had left her alone, perhaps she would have lived a normal life, free of the responsibilities, the heritage, the premature death, that came with being the slayer. He cursed himself promptly for entertaining these thoughts; in the end, she took the responsibility willingly, doing what she had to do for the greater good.  
  
He paused long enough to pay his respects to the tomb, but then his ears perked at a sudden sound. He turned around, bracing himself for any manner of attack, be it mugger or vampire. "Show yourself," he intoned darkly.  
  
Something jumped in front of him, as shadowed as the road in front of her. Something that seemed to be part of the darkness around her. Giles had seen this figure once before in a dream. The Primal Slayer.   
  
She crouched before him, her posture challenging and threatening, yet at the same time reverent toward Giles. She straightened up and approached the Watcher, her every movement graceful and catlike, powerful and predatory. She stared hard at him, and for a second, Giles thought he could see Buffy's charcoal-blue eyes peering at him out of the Slayers' face. She sniffed him, and growled lowly. "You must keep this," she grunted. "When the time comes, you will know." She placed a gnarled hand on his head, and Giles felt a power, an energy, surge from her hand into him. The energy fused with him, consuming him from the inside out. Wracked with terrible pain, he screamed...  
  
========  
  
He woke suddenly, his heart pounding wildly in his chest. He glanced furtively at his surroundings, taking relief in the familiar trappings of his bedroom. He forced his breathing to slow, his heart to calm. He relaxed and forced himself to recall the dream. The Primal Slayer had appeared to him before, as well as Xander, Willow and Buffy. They took it as a sign of their future. A portent of events to come. Was the Primal Slayer trying to warn him about something again? What gift did she give him? And why did she meet him at Buffy's grave?  
  
He slowly rose from his bed and left for the kitchen. There was no way he could sleep now, so he decided to pour himself a cup of tea. Nothing stimulated Giles' mind like a cup of Earl Grey. Even if Xander tended to crack Star Trek jokes over his choice of beverage.   
  
It was a sign, he thought as he sipped his tea. He had no other explaination for his dreaming about the Primal Slayer, and Buffy's gravestone. He wondered if the others were experiencing similar dreams. He would have to ask them about it later.   
  
Somewhere outside of time, the shadowy figure of Morpheus smiled, and continued to craft his dreams. One down, two to go.  
  



	3. Finding Your Way to Superman

  
(Author's Note; the following chapter contains characters and situations created and owned by Don Belisario.)  
  
Chapter Three  
Finding Your Way to Superman  
  
You gotta be tough to make it today   
You do it your way and not how they say  
You gotta be tough to make it today   
And never be scared of finding your way   
to Superman  
--Alanis Morrisette  
"Superman"  
  
Superman never made any money  
Saving the world from Solomon Grundy  
And sometimes I despair the world will never see  
Another man like him  
--Crash Test Dummies  
"Superman's Song"  
  
One week ago;  
  
Willow stared across the table at the two strangers who called themselves her parents. Ira was talking about some new investment, while Sheila offered her some overcooked potatoes to go with her pot roast. Willow ate the potatoes without tasting them. Truth be told, she probably wouldn't have noticed if she had bitten into a raw harbeñero pepper. For nearly two months, she had been unable to feel anything. The person who brought her to her true family was gone.  
  
And now she was having dinner with strangers.  
  
"Willow," Ira glanced at the young redhead, "you didn't tell us what happened to you last quarter. Any new friends, any interesting classes?"  
  
Willow had lost count of the number of times she told Ira about her friends, about her classes, only to have him forget what she said almost as she said it. She just grunted an affirmative, saying, "Nothing different, Dad," she muttered. "Still taking my drama classes, some computer stuff."  
  
"Figures," he said resignedly. "Still wasting your scholarship on that acting nonsense. Nothing worthwhile, nothing useful."  
  
Useful? she thought angrily, despairing that she would ever win this man's approval, wondering if she really wanted it. You mean like spellcasting, demon hunting, saving the world, that sort of thing? No, nothing useful in that!  
  
"Please, Ira," Sheila chided her husband, "show some sympathy. After all, Willow's friend died last month. You remember, Bunny?"   
  
"Buffy," Willow quietly corrected her mother, only to be ignored completely. So what else is new?  
  
"You mean that troublemaker she used to room with?" Ira glared hard at his daughter. "You're better off without her, Willow." Willow seethed at each word, her anger burning white-hot in her gut.  
  
"Dear, be nice," Sheila corrected Ira in a sickly sweet tone of voice that just added to Willow's anger. "No matter what kind of bad seed she was, Bunny was Willow's friend."  
  
"Some friend," Ira bellowed. "Always getting her into trouble in high school, you know she blew the school up during her graduation. I'm glad she's out of our daughter's life! She was no good from the start!"  
  
"She was ten times better than either one of you."  
  
Ira and Sheila stopped cold in their tracks, unable to believe that Willow would say what she said. Ira turned slowly to Willow and asked, in a voice that reminded Willow of the ten seconds before a terrible thunderstorm; "Would you care to repeat yourself, Willow Rosenberg?"  
  
Willow locked eyes with her father, and saw nothing but the contempt of a small man for something he didn't understand. In a brief epiphany, Willow cursed herself for ever wanting this man's favor. "You heard me, Ira Rosenberg. She was ten -- no, a hundred -- times better than the both of you!" Turning toward Sheila, she raged, "And her name, for the very last time, was BUFFY, not Bunny!"  
  
A horrified couple stared at their defiant daughter for five long seconds, before Ira growled in barely contained rage; "I accept that you're still in mourning for your friend, Willow, so I will excuse this outburst. This time. But perhaps it would be better for all of us if you were to leave for the evening, and return when you're in a more civil state of mind."  
  
Willow stood up from the table, her anger becoming action. "You're right, Ira. I should leave. And by 'leave', I mean leave this family. Not that we ever were a family, more like three people who barely tolerated each other for twenty years! Tell me, was there ever a time when I was more than an afterthought in your lives? No, don't bother, I know the answer." She picked up her purse and her windbreaker, and headed for the door. Before she opened the door, she turned back to her scandalized parents. "Starting as soon as I walk out this door, Mr and Mrs Rosenberg, I plan to forget I ever knew you. And I'm sure you'll have no trouble forgetting that you ever knew me. Because you never made the effort to know me, really." Ira and Sheila didn't speak at all, didn't move at all, made no gesture to stop their daughter from severing all ties with them. Willow took this as the final sign that she had no family here anymore. Oddly, she didn't feel any sorrow at the prospect. She didn't feel much of anything, except the need to give them one last shock.  
  
As she walked out the door of her childhood home for the very last time, Willow turned back to look at her former parents. Smiling sweetly, she announced, "Oh, and one more thing, before I walk out of your lives forever. In case I didn't mention it before now, I'm a lesbian. 'Bye!" She slammed the door behind her, and marched back to the apartment she shared with Tara McClay, not once looking behind her.  
  
She had burned a bridge and there was no going back.  
  
========  
  
One week later;  
  
Three newly risen vamps emerged from the graves directly in front of her. She had seen this sort of thing all too often in the last five years of her life. And she was certain she would see it many times again in the future. The price of living in Sunnydale, of knowing what lay beneath the suburban facade.  
  
"Okay, help me out here, I keep forgetting," she smiled as the vamp trio stalked toward her. "Which one of you's Larry and which one's Moe? I got that the bald one's Curly--" The bald vamp lunged artlessly at her, telegraphing his attack enough for her to dodge easily. She was amazed that neither of Curly's compatriots had the foresight to take advantage of the attack and follow after her. Counting her blessings, she concentrated briefly, summoning her powers.  
  
"Lumen Solaris!" she shouted, and suddenly night became day for a brief instant. A ball of pure light appeared in her hands, it's flash resembling the sun, both in brightness and in the effect it had on the three vampires. The light-spell was designed to emit not only visible light but ultra-violet radiation, in a sufficient quantity to render all vampires within a ten-foot radius of the light to ash. Within seconds, only a lone woman stood at the cemetary, the three attackers were destroyed.  
  
She pointed her finger up in front of her lips and blew across the fingertip, in imitation of a gunslinger blowing the smoke off a recently-fired pistol. Willow finished up her patrol, and returned to her apartment, hoping not to awaken her roommate.  
  
Her efforts to enter quietly were to no avail; Tara had been awake and waiting for Willow to return. "Hard day at the office, sweetie?" Tara asked as she embraced her beloved. Willow luxuriated in her lover's arms, grateful for this brief respite in her life. She leaned into Tara's embrace almost automatically, enjoyed the sensation of her lips brushing lightly against Tara's, but she sensed a tenseness in her arms.   
  
And not for the first time. Since she started going out at night, patrolling the local cemeteries, Tara seemed somewhat withdrawn from her. Like she was keeping her feelings to herself regarding Willow's decision to follow in Buffy's footsteps as Sunnydale's local defender. She had assured Willow that she was cool with her decision, but Willow still wondered.  
  
She sought to assure her beloved that she was fine. "Not too terrible. Three newbies risen, three newbies dusted," Willow reported. "All in all, a quiet patrol. I think they're laying low after Glory's fall."  
  
"Let's hope so," Tara said quietly. "After all, there isn't a new Slayer being called."  
  
Willow nodded sadly at Tara's words; two days ago, Giles reported that there was no new slayer called after Buffy's death. Evidently, Faith was now the Slayer, and with her being in jail, Sunnydale was without a protector.   
  
"Oh," Tara announced as she left Willow's embrace, "I just got off the phone with Mr. Giles. He was able to win custody of Dawn away from Mr. Summers. Evidently they settled out of court." She left the sentence hanging with a crook of her eyebrow, which made Willow wonder.  
  
"Oh?" she asked Tara. "What happened, did he go all Ripper on him?" Tara suddenly seemed intently interested in a corner of the ceiling, which Willow took as a sign that she was not at liberty to answer her question. "Right," she said, "I'll shut up now."  
  
"Don't worry, Willow," Tara assured her, "Mr. Giles told me it was all civil. Mr. Summers is on a bus back to L. A., and Giles is talking about taking Dawn with him to England."  
  
This surprised Willow, she never expected that Dawn would be leaving them so soon after Buffy's death. "What do you mean, Tara? Why's Giles going back to England?"  
  
Tara lowered her head slightly, a serious cast over her face. "He told me that he was offered a position on the Watcher's Council. I don't know all the details, but he said that Dawn was happy to hear about it. She wants a change of scene, I guess. After all that happened to us, to her especially, I guess I can't blame her."  
  
Willow lowered her head in sorrow. "Poor Dawnie," she whispered hoarsely. Buffy may have been her dearest friend, but she was Dawn's sister. The only real family Dawn had left. She could only imagine how hard the younger Summers girl was feeling. And perhaps it was right for Dawn to start afresh in some other place. But Willow knew that she wasn't looking forward to seeing Dawn leave. Dawn was Willow's last link to Buffy. That and the fight.  
  
"It'll be good for them, really," Tara assured Willow. "After all that's happened to them, I can't blame them for wanting to leave." Turning toward her dresser, Tara continued, "Maybe that's what we all need. I mean, Xander was talking about that new Seattle job he was offered, Giles and Dawnie are heading to England, maybe we all need a new start."  
  
Willow regarded Tara warily, unsure of this thread of conversation. "What do you mean, Tara?"  
  
Tara turned to Willow, and handed her a brochure. "I want you to look at this, honey." Willow took the brochure in her hand and looked at it; "University of California Berkeley 2001-2002".  
  
Willow looked intently at her lover as they sat on the edge of their bed together, seeking Tara's eyes for understanding. "I spoke with some people on the Wicca World chat room who attend Berkeley. There's a strong alternative religious base there, many prominent wiccan groups and covens. And they have an excellent dramatic arts program there. You could continue your major, we could keep up with our wiccan studies, we can be together."  
  
Willow gazed sadly at Tara, then wrapped an arm around her shoulder protectively. "We are together now. I don't see that changing in the near future. But I don't know if I want to uproot so suddenly. I mean, I was born here, I lived here all my life. Sunnydale's my home."  
  
"What kind of home is this place anyway?" Tara's outburst caught Willow by surprise. "Just last week you severed all your ties to your folks. Buffy's gone, Xander, Giles and Dawn are leaving, what's keeping you here? What's keeping us here?"  
  
Willow lowered her head, unsure of how she would phrase this, unsure of how Tara would respond. "I gotta stay here. I feel --- I, I feel that something's not finished. Like the Goddess has some mission for me here, and I gotta stay here, to see it through. To do what the Goddess has planned for me."  
  
"Is that why you've been going on graveyard patrols ever since you left your folks?"  
  
Willow wasn't prepared for the accusatory tone of the question, but she didn't challenge Tara. "Maybe, I dunno. But I do know that I have abilities that I can use to make a difference. And I gotta try. It's like my mandate from the Goddess, like a message from Her to do good in the world."  
  
Tara regarded Willow's face, seeing the underlying seriousness, the firm determined set in her jawline, the steel gaze of her jade eyes. Willow wasn't lying to her, Tara knew that. The last thing Willow would knowingly do is lie to her. But she still wasn't satisfied with the answer. "I think I got my message from the Goddess loud and clear a couple of months ago. From a goddess, at any rate." She flopped back on the bed, sighing almost inaudibly. "From Glory."  
  
Willow nodded without speaking. Ever since that last terrible month, Tara has had that same recurring nightmare. Glory, the insane diety, her hands clamping down on Tara's head, Tara screaming as her mind, her essence, her very self was being sucked out of her to feed the mad goddess, until Tara was locked up inside of her own head, unable to contact the ones she cared for, unable to communicate lucidly on any level. Trapped in a wilderness of mirrors, while her body was babbling incoherently, like a madwoman. Even after Willow helped restore her sanity, the memory of that time of sheer helplessness was eating away at her.  
  
"Tara," Willow soothed her dearest love, her voice as gentle and loving as she could manage, "it's all right. I'll always be there when you awaken, you'll beat those nightmares. We'll beat them, together."  
  
Tara looked back at Willow, and the redhead was stricken by the tears in Tara's eyes. "You were my lifeline, Wills. You pulled me out of my madness. And I don't want to wait until it's too late to pull you out of this madness." She sat up, her version of "Resolve Face" in place. "Let's transfer to Berkeley. It'll be good for both of us. Just to get away from here. From this Helltown."  
  
Willow shook her head, fearing what her decision would do to Tara. "I can't, honey," she murmured. "Sunnydale's my home. And it was Buffy's home. If nothing else, I owe it to her to try and help." As Tara looked away from Willow, the redhead tried to assure her. "Don't worry, honey. Sunnydale's still a good college. We can still take those classes we were talking about, I'll still get my B.A. in Drama, maybe go for a Masters--"  
  
"I already started the paperwork for my transfer."  
  
The words left Tara's mouth as a whisper, so soft that almost anyone else wouldn't have heard them. Only someone who was familiar with Tara's ways, with her voice, with her heart would have comprehended what Tara had just said.  
  
Someone like Willow Rosenberg.  
  
The silence hung over them like a blade, tethered to the ceiling by a piece of string. Willow feared that every word, every syllable, spoken between them would fray that string, until the blade fell, cutting off their heads. Or seperating them forever.  
  
Even under the most ironclad levels of control she could muster, a tinge of anger entered Willow's voice; "And you were going to bring this up when?"  
  
"I-I'm s-sorry," Tara stammered, "I w-was going to tell you, but you've b-been gone all these nights." Tara sat there, looking more and more miserable. Even as angry as she was, Willow couldn't help but feel sympathy. "Out all nights, stalking vamps and demons, trying to take over as the Slayer. News flash, Willow, you're not the Slayer! The Slayer's dead!"  
  
"I know she's dead!" Willow snarled at Tara, and immediately regretted it. Calming herself, she tried to offer an arm around Tara's shoulder, but the blond wiccan shrugged it off. "I'm not trying to be the Slayer, I just want to make a difference. Why can't you support me in this? Why are you leaving me?"  
  
"I'm not leaving you, Willow, I'm leaving this place. Sunnydale is damned, we both know this. Let it rot, I say, the rest of the world will survive without it."  
  
Willow chuckled ruefully, mirthlessly. "If only it worked that way, hon. Look, as long as the Hellmouth's here, it's a threat to the world. Buffy knew this, that's why she couldn't leave. And that's why I couldn't leave here either, I guess. She was my friend, I couldn't let her fight this evil alone. And I can't just let it go now, even after she died. I owe it to her. I'm sorry, Tara, I wish I could explain it better..." She simply stopped the sentence there. She simply couldn't say any more.  
  
She didn't need to, her word was clear. Tara lowered her head, saddened by what was happening to her and Willow, feeling torn apart by a hundred conflicting emotions. Tentatively, she reached out to touch the outline of Willow's cheek, and Willow leaned into her love's hand. "You're so much like her, Willow," Tara whispered. "And I wish with all my heart I could be more like you. But I'm not. I'm not a hero, I think we proved that with Glory. I just want to live, I want us to be alive, together. And I can't spend the rest of my life living in her shadow." She shook her head, wishing the tears could stop flowing. "She gave up her life to save Dawn, to save us, to save the world. How the hell can I compete with that?"  
  
"It's not a competition," Willow gently placed her thumb under Tara's eye, wiping away her tears. "Yes, she saved the world. You're part of that world, part of my world. Don't say goodbye to that, not now."  
  
"Come with me to Berkeley, Willow."  
  
"Stay with me, Tara."  
  
The two women sat silently, eyes locked. Whether in passion or in confrontation, neither could say. Finally, Willow bent her head, and whispered, "I understand, Tara. You gotta do what's right for you. I just don't want to lose you."  
  
"You haven't lost me, Willow," Tara assured Willow, taking her into her embrace. "I promise you that. I mean it's not like I'm moving to another hemisphere. Berkeley's just a short drive from here, y'know."  
  
"Yeah," Willow acknowledged sadly, but managed to smile at Tara. "We can visit each other on weekends, that sort of thing."  
  
"And we still have a couple of months before I have to leave for Berkeley."  
  
Willow regarded Tara with a lustful gaze. "Then we'd better not waste a second." She held Tara tightly, their lips met in a languorous kiss, and the two of them enjoyed the close contact, first for comfort, then in passion.  
  
Ever since Tara found out that Willow had shared the responsibilities of Buffy's heritage as the Slayer, she was in awe of this woman. She felt kind of like Lois Lane, falling in love with a superhero, and finding that Superman(or Superwoman in this case) returned her affections. But now she had seen the darker side of being Superman. She wasn't as brave as Willow, she still held fear for the local evils, she still felt the scars from her bout of insanity following her confrontation with Glory. As much as she loved Willow, those fears would always be with her. She was no hero, she was just Tara.  
  
For now, in the promise of passion within Willow's arms, she let go of her fears, if only for a little while. The two of them were facing an uncertain future, but for now, facing it together.  
  
========  
  
JAG headquarters, Arlington, Virginia;  
  
"Lieutenant Graham," Colonel Sarah MacKenzie entered the office, and the lieutenant stood sharply at attention at her entrance. the colonel cocked her eyebrow amusedly. "At ease, soldier, before you sprain something."  
  
"Yes, ma'am." The lieutenant answered as he shifted to the more relaxed posture of 'at ease'.  
  
"Lieutenant," MacKenzie greeted Graham crisply. "Admiral Chegwidden will see you now. If you'll follow me," she lead the way to the Admiral's office, the lieutenant following behind. He felt a slight sense of dread; his being summoned to Arlington merely confirmed in his mind the fear he had regarding his friend and fellow soldier.  
  
They entered the Admiral's office, and the admiral greeted them formally. Abner Jethro Chegwidden was a former Navy Seal, and despite his years, he was still in prime condition, both in mind and body. He was well in his fifties, but he could still conceivably kick the sixes of most every person currently stationed at the Judge Advocate General's Headquarters. Meeting him that first time, Lieutenant Graham had no doubt that the admiral could kick his six without breaking a sweat.  
  
The other man in the room looked less formidable, but Graham still kept a wary eye on him. "Lieutenant," Admiral Chegwidden introduced the other gentleman, "this is Clayton Webb, CIA. Mr. Webb has some questions to ask you concerning your fellow officer, Lieutenant Riley Finn."  
  
"Yes sir, Admiral," Graham answered. Webb, looking not too comfortable in his suit, looked at the young man, and informed him, "According to our intell, Mr. Finn was on leave for six days. That was two weeks ago. He is now officially listed as AWOL."  
  
"If you say so, sir," Graham answered noncommittally.  
  
"Relax, son, you're not being accused of anything. We just need some information from you. Now then, do you happen to remember whether he had received some distressing news prior to his leave?"  
  
"Yes sir," Graham said. "We had just returned from a mission in Belize, and he had received a letter from someone he knew from Sunnydale, California. Mr. Rupert Giles, I think."  
  
"Do you happen to know what the letter was about?"  
  
"Mr. Giles wrote to inform Riley that his ex-girlfriend, Buffy, was dead."  
  
Clayton Webb stopped short of asking if this Buffy person's last name happened to be 'Summers'; he knew about Miss Summers, from a few dossiers from the Initiative. "How did Finn took the news about Buffy's death?"  
  
"It hit him pretty hard, sir. Our C.O. gave him a week's leave to go to Sunnydale, to mourn her, I guess. That was two weeks ago."  
  
Webb looked at the lieutenant for a second without expression. "During the last month or so, have you received any messages from the Initiative, or any of its senior officers?"  
  
"No sir."  
  
"The Initiative, Webb?" Colonel MacKenzie asked. "May I ask what this is about?"   
  
"You may, Mac," Webb answered casually. Graham had correctly guessed that the colonel and Mr. Webb knew each other, and the Marine was no fan of the CIA official. "But since it's strictly need-to-know, it wouldn't do much good."  
  
"I never did like this spook stuff," Chegwidden glowered at Webb, but let him continue.  
  
"Under the circumstances, A.J," Webb smiled at the admiral, imaging that he could hear the old man's teeth grinding, "I can tell you that the Initiative was involved in some clandestine experiments, unfortunately most proved not only unsuccessful but entirely unethical. The Initiative was disbanded, their base was torn down and the land was salted. However, I fear that some of the higher ranking members of the Initiative have regrouped, deserting their posts in the process. Judging from what I dug up on them, and the reports of Lieutenant Finn's desertion, I fear that Finn is part of the conspiracy." Turning to Colonel MacKenzie, he finished, "We need someone associated with the Initiative to find out whether their projects have indeed been restarted, and if so, we need to pull the plug. If you and Harm are available, Mac, I'd like you and the Lieutenant to report to Sunnydale to investigate."  
  
MacKenzie's eyebrows furrowed at the mention of her partner and friend. "Commander Raab is unavailable, Webb. He's still on sick leave, recovering from having to bail from his fighter into a heavy storm over the Atlantic. However, I'm ready to go on the next flight to Sunnydale."  
  
"Permission to speak freely, Admiral," Graham requested suddenly. Chegwidden nodded silently, and Graham continued; "I was with the Initiative originally, and I know what it was about. And trust me, sirs, it wasn't pretty. There's a lot of stuff going on in Sunnydale that doesn't get recorded. I think it would be better if I went in alone. If Finn's there, I'll find out."  
  
"I don't feel comfortable leaving you there alone, Lieutenant," Chegwidden answered.  
  
"I have connections there that may help me," Graham answered. 'Yeah, assuming that Buffy's friends won't stake me on sight. After what the Initiative nearly did to them, I wouldn't blame them.' "And the Colonel could remain in Los Angeles or San Francisco, close enough for me to contact easily."  
  
"He may have a plan, Admiral," MacKenzie added. "He knows his way around Sunnydale better than I do."  
  
Admiral Chegwidden looked thoughtfully at MacKenzie and Graham. "Agreed, people. Mac, Graham, you two are on the next plane to Los Angeles, where Graham will transfer to Sunnydale. Stay in contact, and don't take any unnecessary risks, Graham. I want this Initiative situation under control, and Finn's sorry six in the brig by the end of the week. Dismissed." Webb, MacKenzie and Graham left the Admiral's office, heading for their new assignments.  
  
Graham prayed that what he was thinking wasn't true, but he feared that it was. And if it was, Finn's desertion was the least of their problems.  
  
========  
  
Willow lay on her stomach, naked, her breasts feeling the smooth sheen of silk. She felt the cool wetness of the ink and the gentle sweep of the bristles as Tara applied her brush to her back. Tara dipped the brushtip in the inkwell, and continued to write arcane and esoteric signs on Willow's back, commenting favorably on her lover's curves. Occasionally, Tara would stop to caress Willow's shoulder, or lean forward to nibble her earlobe.  
  
Willow was lost in a sea of erotic sensation, luxuriating in the sheer decadence of having Tara write on her naked back, enjoying the smooth satiny sensation of the lounge pillows beneath her. She nodded slowly, barely hearing her love's voice as she spoke. She didn't care, she just allowed herself to feel sexy, to feel loved.  
  
A sudden jolt brought her to her senses, like a skipped groove on an old record and she bolted upright. She grabbed a sheet to cover her breasts, but feared destroying Tara's handiwork. She suddenly remembered Tara, but a glance around her revealed that her lover wasn't in the room. "Tara?" she asked. "Where are you?"  
  
A grunt behind her yanked her around, and she saw a dark figure. She knew her from another dream, the Primal Slayer. The Slayer looked at Willow through matted hair, her wild eyes and grubby face growling silently in the dim candlelight. For some reason that Willow couldn't fathom, however, the Slayer was wearing a white t-shirt with a bright red-and-yellow Superman 'S' shield, and denim cutoffs. Willow was both scared of the Slayer's presence, and amused by her fashion sense, but those emotions took a back seat to the shock of recognition. Something within those eyes carried an unmistakable spark, one that spoke to Willow's deepest heart. Buffy. She was in there somewhere.  
  
Willow sat transfixed as the Slayer as she took Willow's hand and placed it gently on the S on her shirt. "Keep this," she grunted. "I'll be back for it." A surge of energy passed from the Slayer through Willow's hand. The sheer shock of the energy yanked Willow out of the world where she had been...  
  
========  
  
...and into the room she shared with Tara. She woke up suddenly, gasping for air. She looked around her, seeing that she was wearing her cow pajamas, while Tara slept soundly in the bed next to her. Willow sighed with relief, and silently rose from the bed, careful not to wake her sleeping lover.   
  
She padded her way to the bathroom, turned on the tap and threw some cold water on her face. "Goddess, what's happening to me?" she asked herself. The details of her dream were still fresh and vibrant in her mind. Most dreams she had she forgot the details shortly upon waking, but this dream, no, she remembered every second, every brushstroke on her back, the surge of energy she felt when she touched the Slayer.  
  
It was a message, that much was certain. But of what? What did the Slayer do to her? What was she to keep for her? She decided that she couldn't figure this out tonight, not alone anyway. She would speak with Tara tomorrow, and hope that her insight would help shed some light on this dream.  
  
Before she returned to the bed and to Tara's side, she spoke quietly, in a whisper; "Goddess, I pray to you, tell me what would you have me do? What is my mission for the Light, the task you have set for me?" She looked at herself in the mirror, desperate to find any trace of the gawky, long-haired computer hacker she was before she met the Slayer. No, she realized, that person was another life. The daughter of Ira and Sheila Rosenberg was dead. She was Willow now. Daughter of the Goddess. That's all that mattered to her now.  
  
And far beyond all human knowing, Morpheus continued to craft his dreams...  
  



	4. Old Man

Props go out to Mad-Hamlet for helping me get Spike's character straight.  
  
Chapter Four  
Old Man  
  
"Old Man look at my life,  
I'm a lot like you were.  
  
Old man look at my life,   
Twenty four and there's so much more   
Live alone in a paradise   
That makes me think of two.   
  
Love lost, such a cost,   
Give me things that don't get lost.   
Like a coin that won't get tossed   
Rolling home to you.   
  
Old man take a look at my life   
I'm a lot like you   
I need someone to love me   
The whole day through   
Ah, one look in my eyes   
And you can tell that's true."  
--Neil Young  
"Old Man"   
  
  
  
"Mr. Harris, Miss Rozhenka, it's good to see you both here again," Doctor Turner greeted the young couple. She found herself smiling as she always did as she saw these two; she had never seen a couple so obviously in love with each other as these two. They had just announced their engagement, and Dr. Turner wished them both happiness. "I have the results of your physical, Miss Rozhenka--"  
  
"Please," the auburn haired young woman interrupted the doctor, "call me Anya."  
  
"And while we're on the first name thing," her fiance added, "call me Xander."  
  
"Glad to, Xander, Anya," Dr. Turner answered, "as long as you call me Janet. Now then, Anya, you were complaining about some illness for the last few days?"  
  
"Yes," Anya said. "Mostly in the morning. Which is a bit of an inconvience, considering that I end up retching into a toilet every morning when I'd rather be having sex with Xander the moment he wakes up. He especially likes it when---"  
  
"Ahn," Xander smiled, slightly embarrassed by her detailed descriptions of their private life, "remember that conversation we had about what you tell the doctor and what you don't tell her?" Anya sagged back in her chair, displeased at having been silenced by Xander but willing to listen to him.  
  
"Ah, well," Janet stammered slightly as she looked at her clipboard. She had examined Anya before, and spoke with her and Xander, and was convinced that she would never get used to Anya's candid attitude toward sex. She pushed those thoughts out of he mind, and concentrated on the task at hand. "Well, Anya, you aren't sick, there's no sign of virus or infection, you're in perfect health."  
  
"But I can't be," Anya protested. "If I'm in perfect health, why am I throwing up every morning?"  
  
Janet smiled at Anya's question. "The same reason women have been suffering morning sickness for tens of thousands of years, Anya. According to these results, you're six weeks pregnant."  
  
========  
  
The reality of the doctor's pronouncement hadn't yet registered for Xander while he was sitting in his apartment. Pregnant. Anya was pregnant. She was going to be a mother.  
  
He was going to be a father.  
  
Anya skitted around their apartment in a flurry of activity. "We should try to find a bigger apartment before the baby comes, Xander. Unless you want to stay here."  
  
"Uh, sure, Anya, anything you say," Xander muttered noncommitally.  
  
Anya glanced back at Xander, an amused expression on her face. "Of course, we'll need more room for various baby things. Y'know, the bassinet, the changing table, the Leer jet, that sort of thing."  
  
"Yeah, no problem."  
  
Anya huffed at her fiance who was clearly not paying any attention to her. "And of course we'll need to clear some space in the bedroom, for when Willow and Tara come over for our threeway lesbian orgies."  
  
"Yeah, whatever."   
  
At these words, Anya snatched a pillow from the sofa and threw it hard at Xander's head. The sudden impact of the pillow knocked Xander off of his chair and onto his butt. "I knew you weren't listening, Xander, you stinker!"   
  
The sudden awareness of his girlfriend screaming at him like a banshee brought Xander out of his fugue state quickly. He scrambled to his feet and took Anya in his arms, stroking her hair gently, whispering assurances to her. "Hey, I'm sorry, Anya. It's just that everything's been piling up on me all at once. I mean we just buried one of my best friends two months ago, and now we're gonna be parents. It's just a lot to take in at once, y'know?"  
  
"Yeah," Anya admitted. "I guess you're right. But us being parents, it's like the greatest thing that ever happened to me in over a thousand years. You and me, Dad and Mom. More than anything else in this world, this is what I want, to be your wife, to carry your child, breast-feed, change diapers, argue over allowances and curfews--"  
  
"Stop, you've sold me," Xander raised his hands, chuckling lightly with his love. "And hey, it's not that I don't want to be a father, it's just that I need to get used to it first, is all."   
  
Xander sat back down, and Anya slowly lighted on Xander's lap, her arms wrapped around his neck. "Is something the matter, Xander?" she asked.  
  
Xander shook his head, dispelling the cobwebs as he considered his answer. "I dunno, Anya. It's just that, that, well--we're gonna be parents, in Sunnydale!"  
  
Anya looked quizically at Xander. "Uh, yeah, that was established by our doctor."  
  
"Yeah, but in Sunnydale!" Xander almost shouted, then reined his voice in when he saw Anya wince. "I mean, we're talking the Riviera of the undead. Do we want to raise a kid here? I might not get that job in Seattle, hon, so we may be stuck here."  
  
"Hey, Xander," Anya assured him, rubbing his back as she spoke; she knew the effect this usually had on him. "It'll be okay. Even if you don't get the Seattle job, we still make enough between us to raise a kid. And I can't think of anyone I'd trust more with my baby than you, Xander Harris."  
  
Xander blushed slightly at Anya's praise. "Yay me," he chuckled. "Xander Harris, construction worker, vamp fighter, father. Far cry from some loser who lived in his parents' basement, eh?" He got up from his chair, ambled over to the kitchen and pulled a Coke out of the refrigerator. Anya observed him as he moved. His movements seemed slower, somehow; his shoulders sagged, his arms swung limply, like an older person. Like an old man.  
  
Old man.  
  
Anya walked slowly behind Xander, and wrapped her arms around his torso. "What is it really, Xand? Your dad?"  
  
Xander lowered his head. "My dad. My dad, who liked to treat me like Rocky Balboa would treat that side of beef. You sure you want me for a dad?"  
  
Anya leaned her head into the crook of Xander's neck. "You don't believe that you would hurt our baby?"  
  
Xander shook his head vigorously. "No way! No way I'd ever hurt our baby!" Anya could feel his shoulders slump against hers. "But I'll bet my dad said the same thing when Mom was pregnant with me. I dunno, Ahn. I've read conflicting reports on the subject. Some say that abused children tend to become abusive parents, some say that they're less likely to be abusive, and some say there's no real connection. I just don't know, Anya."  
  
"If you don't know, honey," Anya soothed, "then let me tell you. I think I'm in a position to know you better than most people, not to mention that I've seen all types of humanity over the last thousand years before I ever met you. And I can say without fear of contradiction that you are the kindest, sweetest person I've ever met. I've seen the way you treat Dawn, the way you were there for Willow and Tara after Buffy's death. I know you can handle being a parent." She nibbled his earlobe. "And I know that our child will love you as much as I do."  
  
Xander felt strangely humbled at this woman's devotion. He could easily see himself standing in the kitchen with Anya's arms around him all day(or at least until they decided to move the action into the bedroom).   
  
He knew almost a split second before it happened that the telephone was going to ring.  
  
"Let the machine get it," Anya protested, but Xander reluctantly pulled away from her to answer the phone. "Don't worry, Anya," he assured her, "I'll just tell them we don't want any." He answered the phone, in a false cheerful tone; "Xander Harris here."  
  
"Alex?"  
  
Only two people in the world ever called him 'Alex'. And he wasn't on good terms with either of them. "Hello, Dad," he murmured, only the barest veneer of civility in his voice.  
  
"Hey son," his father said hesitantly. "I'm sorry if this is a bad time, but I need to ask you a favor."  
  
A favor? Do ME a favor, 'Dad', Xander thought, put your hand on a downed powerline! "What is it?"  
  
"Well, your mom and I are going away for a few months, and we wondered if you could look after the place. Y'know, keep the lawn mowed and watered, that sort of thing. I'd be willing to pay you for your trouble, say a couple hundred?"  
  
Xander blinked suddenly; his father paying him for looking after his house? "Where are you and mom going?"  
  
"Rehab." He said the word so plainly, but the word itself caused Xander to fumble to keep from dropping the receiver. "Son, your mom and I, we've screwed up a lot. We've owned up to that. We're alcoholics, Alex, and we let things get too far. It's gonna take a lot of time and effort on our part, but we're getting help."  
  
Xander just stood there, processing what his father said. "Wow," he breathed, unable to say anything more.  
  
"Son," his father continued, "I don't expect us to be a close family, but I guess we never were anyway. I just wanted to say," there was hesitation, and some deep sense of guilt, Xander could hear it on his end. "Xander, you're not a loser. I've never said this to you before, and I'm a fool for not seeing it sooner, but you've done good. Your mom and I, we--we're proud of you, son. Damn proud."  
  
Xander breathed in deeply, unsure how to handle his father's praise. He could feel a tear welling up in his eye as he stammered to his father; "W-wow, Dad. I'm -- I'm speechless! I, uh, yeah, sure, I'd be glad to watch over the place for you. I assume you stopped mail and the paper already, right?"  
  
"Yeah, taken care of."  
  
"Good. I'll look in on the place, keep it cleaned up, that sort of thing. Hey, you know when you and Mom are getting back from rehab?"  
  
"We should be out of the clinic in three or four months," Mr. Harris answered.  
  
"Hey, when you get out, you wanna get together with Anya and me? We kinda wanted to talk to you guys, tell some good news--"  
  
Anya grabbed the receiver from his hand and shouted into it; "We're getting married, Mr. Harris, and I'm having Xander's baby!"  
  
"ANYA!" Xander shouted, "I wanted to ease them into it!" Taking the receiver back, he said to his dad, "Sorry 'bout that. Uh, that was Anya, my fiancee."  
  
"Sounds like a lively girl," his father laughed lightly. "Congratulations. And that just gives us another reason to clean up our act; we wanna be clean and sober for our grandchild."  
  
Xander smiled despite himself. "Hey, good luck. They take visitors? Anya and I'll be glad to visit."  
  
"I think they do have scheduled visits. I'll let you know."  
  
"Hey, when do you guys have to go, anyway?"  
  
"In two days."  
  
Xander swallowed a lump in his throat. "I'll look after the place for you. Good luck."  
  
"You too, Alex," Mr. Harris answered.  
  
"Hey, call me Xander. All my friends do."  
  
Silence, then; "Am I your friend now? I know I've been a crappy father, you sure you want me to be your friend now?"  
  
"I'd like that, yeah," Xander fought back a wave of emotions. "You two take care now."  
  
"We will. See you on the other side."  
  
"I'd like that. 'Bye."  
  
After hanging up the phone, Xander shuddered, still coming to grips with recent events. Anya smiled at him, a knowing gleam in her eyes. "Still having doubts regarding your family credentials?"  
  
Xander chuckled, his laughter becoming a healing balm. "Maybe I'm not so hopeless as I thought."  
  
"Good," Anya nodded. "Because we have a more serious problem. Y'see, babies need a lot of things, like cradles, changing tables, bassinets, that sort of thing, and well," She couldn't finish the statement.  
  
Xander suspected what was bothering her, but wanted to hear the words. She swallowed hard and continued; "Well, most of these things tend to come embellished with, uh, b-bunnies."  
  
"Sorry, hon," Xander laughed, "you're gonna have to get used to the idea."  
  
"I guess," she puffed a resigned sigh. "Especially when Willow and Tara give me their baby shower gifts. You know they'll do that."  
  
"Hey, you could start small," Xander suggested. "Some Bugs Bunny cartoons at first, work your way up from there."  
  
Anya shook her head, amazed at Xander's ability to show a sense of humor in any circumstance. "I do love you, Xander Harris," she demurred as she draped her arms around his shoulders, taking him in for a slow, relaxed kiss.  
  
"And I love you, Anya. And I can't wait to meet our kid."  
  
"If it's a boy," she insisted, "we call him Alex."  
  
Xander thought for a second. "Okay." His expression turned serious. "And if it's a girl," he added, "I want to name her Buffy."  
  
Anya nodded. "Buffy Alexis Harris. I like that." She leaned forward, kissing him again. "Y'know, pregnant women get cravings, and I got one right now."  
  
"Oh?" Xander teased. "Pickles and ice cream?"  
  
"No, silly," she answered, "you and me, naked and under the covers."  
  
She whooped happily as Xander lifted her in his arms. "I think we can arrange that," he announced as he carried her into the bedroom.  
  
========  
  
The gaunt figure in the duster jacket stood by the entrance of his crypt, taking a swig of some stale beer. Bloody Foster's, he groused, the Australian beer that, if you offered it to an Aussie, he'd fry your liver for breakfast. Not that he could choose his alcohol, it just happened to be what he could lift from the mini mart. He chuckled at the thought; most anti-shoplifting security measures involve the merchant's ability to see the shoplifter in the store's strategically placed mirrors.  
  
Of course, when you cast no reflection, that rather defeated the whole excercize.  
  
He scanned the cemetery, his eyes falling on that same plot of land some hundred feet away. The one area in the entire cemetery where he never ventured.  
  
The plot where she rested.  
  
He argued with himself that he was maintaining the sanctity of her resting place by avoiding it. After all, it wasn't like she wanted him around in life, why should she want him around after her death? But on closer examination, he realized that he was simply being a coward. No matter what she ever thought of him, he simply couldn't take the thought of a world without her.  
  
"Hostile 17!" an authoritative voice barked behind him. "Hands where I can see them, don't move!"  
  
The blond vamp raised his hands slowly, turned to the man behind him and chuckled. "First off, mate," he smirked, "the name's Spike. Your little soldier boy clique's deader than the parrot on Monty Python, and I still have that little chip in my head, so there's no reason to give me a hard time."  
  
Graham stood his ground, a crossbow aimed at Spike's heart. "Right now, I have no idea who are my friends and who are my enemies."  
  
"Yoohoo," Spike announced, raising his hand. "Enemy over here!"  
  
"Very funny, Spike," Graham countered. "Truth is, I'm here to investigate reports that the Initiative has been reestablished."  
  
"Oh, bugger me for a pack of smokes!" Spike stormed around his crypt door briefly. "Not those wankers again! I thought that Uncle Sam gave up on those testosterone boys!"  
  
"If they are back, Spike," Graham replied, "they're back illegaly, without government sanction." He paused, his face a mask, hiding his deepest fears. "I also wanted you to do me a favor."  
  
"Oh, that's rich," Spike chuckled. "After all you sods did for me, you want me to do you a solid? Do us both a favor and go piss off a vamp who can fight back!"  
  
"I'm serious, Spike," Graham shouted. He knew that Colonel MacKenzie wouldn't approve of Graham using Spike for this mission if she was aware of his existence, but he felt that the desperate ploy was still the only way to find out what he needed to know. "I know that you're not a typical vamp. I even know that you have some emotional bond with Buffy Summers. That's why I need you to help me."  
  
Spike regarded the soldier with a searching eye. He sniffed, hoping to smell some sweat on his brow, a sign that he was lying to him, that he was afraid of being found out. He smelled nothing out of the ordinary with him, and decided to play along. "I'm listening."  
  
Graham explained his concerns; "From what little intell I have, former members of the Initiative have been contacted within the last two months. The first such contact took place two days after Buffy's funeral. I took the liberty to examine any coroner's reports regarding her death, and they all listed her death as an accident."  
  
"Yeah," Spike harrumphed, "she accidently did a swan dive into an interdimensional vortex, accidently saving all of creation in the process."  
  
"I'm just telling you what I read," Graham answered. "Of course, I also found out that the coroner who examined her was also a member of the Initiative. That's why I need you to do something for me."  
  
Spike crooked his head. "Yeah? What for?"  
  
"As a vampire, you possess a heightened sense of smell. I need you to sniff around Buffy's grave."  
  
"What do you think I'll find?"  
  
Graham breathed quietly, "It's what I think you won't find that worries me."  
  
Spike sighed deeply. "Okay, let's do it." He slowly made his way to the grave he didn't have the guts to visit before. He paused to pay his respects to the grave of Joyce Summers, who lay in her eternal rest next to her daughter. He then noticed the stone over Buffy's grave. "She saved the world, a lot," he snickered. "I'll bet Red wrote that." He looked around the grave site, not knowing what to expect. He then stood still, sniffed, and concentrated.  
  
He took a second, tentative sniff. Graham stood by silenetly. Spike didn't say anything, he was just quiet for a few seconds then released the air he had been holding.   
  
The hair on the back of Graham's neck stood up as Spike slowly turned his head to face him. His expression hadn't changed at all, indeed he looked exactly the same. Kind of an annoyed, put upon tone with a slight sneer tugging at the corner of his lips. But... something told Graham be better start praying that the chip didn't break down in the next ten seconds.   
  
"You...utter..bastards." Spike said very, very quietly. Almost a whisper.   
  
Spikes figure blurred for a second. When he..returned to normal...Graham was aware of a quiet creaking sound. It grew...little by little...then with a loud crack the the tree behind the headstone split in half.  
  
Graham looked from the tree and back to Spike who had materialised right in front of him, his nose less centimeters away from his own.   
  
"Where is she?" Spike whispered, almost tonelessly.  
  
Graham gulped hard, saying, "If I'm right, S-Spike, Buffy was never buried here. I believe that the Initiative have her corpse, and are preparing to reanimate her. They're using her to restart the ADAM experiments."  
  
"If that's the case, mate, then they die," Spike purred, "or..chip or no chip..You die." He took a few steps back. "C'mon soldier boy. We have to tell the others."  
  
As they walked from the cemetary Spike slapped Graham on the soldier in a very friendly away.   
  
"Got a new name for you soldier boy." He said. "Hostile #2. Which of course means there is a Hostile #1 but..if we don't get him...I'm not exactly picky. Get the drift?"  
  
No other words were spoken between the two of them. They knew that they had to contact Buffy's friends tomorrow night. Graham had to shut down an inhuman experiment, and make sure that his friend Riley wasn't involved. Before Spike could lay his hands on him.   
  
Spike, for his part, was unspeaking, unsmiling, almost a frozen mask of rage. He too had a mission, and woe to anyone who dared to stand in his way. Spike had to avenge this blasphemy against a great heroine.   
  
He had to insure that Buffy was allowed to rest in peace. Nothing else mattered to him.  
  
========  
  
He cowered in his basement room as his parents started in again. The drunken accusations, the slurred obscenities, the breaking dishes and slamming doors. Yeah, all too familiar. He figured that if he just sat out of it, he'd be okay.  
  
But this fight seemed different. The voices seemed different. His mother's voice, especially, it sounded like...  
  
Anya.  
  
He slipped out of the basement, and peered out the door. He saw himself and his wife, his Anya, fifteen years older, and they were going at it. He was blaming his son for screwing up in school, for not pulling down straight A's.  
  
He heard his own voice calling his own son a loser.  
  
Xander slowly knelt down behind the wall, his grief a slow and consuming thing. It was true, he thought. He was as bad as his own dad. A worthless, abusive, good-for-nothing--  
  
"It's not true," a rough voice spoke to him. Xander turned around and saw a strange, yet familiar figure. A vaguely feminine shape, with muddied dreadlocks and a feral expression on her face. A familiar glow emerged from the Primal Slayer's eyes, and an easy smile graced her lips. Somehow, she carried something of Buffy in her.  
  
Hmph, not at all like the way I saw her last time.  
  
"It's not true," she repeated. "You aren't like that. Look." Her words were a command, and Xander was compelled to obey. He looked around the basement wall again, and saw his older self. He was sitting at the dinner table with a young boy that could only be his son, and the two of them were working with a Revell model starship Enterprise. The young boy looked frustrated.  
  
"Darn," he grumped, "I can never get these labels on straight."  
  
"Hey, don't stress it, AJ," the older Xander assured his son(AJ, Xander thought? Alex Jr.?) "I could never deal with those things either. First I would soak them in water, then I'd take them off with a tweezers, then they'd break before I could put them on the model. Don't worry about it, son, you're doing better than I ever did." His son smiled at the words of reassurance, and continued to work on the model.  
  
Xander felt a lightness in his heart he had seldom experienced. Was this his future? Was that really his son? The Primal Slayer spoke to him; "You won't turn out like your father. Because of this," she handed him what looked like a human heart. "Take it, look after it. I'll be back for it." He took the heart, and felt strangely dizzy. He succumbed to the vertigo, and---  
  
He woke up in his bed, Anya sleeping contentedly at his side, cuddling next to him. The dream was still fresh in his mind.   
  
His right arm absently eased its way around Anya's shoulder and held her close to him. Despite the assurances that he would never become his father, he felt worried. The Primal Slayer. If he was dreaming about her, were Willow and Giles as well?   
  
He'd have to find out. And soon. If the Primal Slayer was back, there could be trouble ahead.  
  
Outside of the waking world, the Sandman sat back. His work was done for now. His dreams were sent. He could intervene no more in their lives, he could only hope that the three could decipher the clues he sent them in their dreams.  
  
The soul of a hero relied on it.  



	5. Weird Science

Chapter Five  
Weird Science  
  
========  
  
"From my heart and from my hand,  
Why don't people understand  
My intentions?  
  
Weird Science!  
Plastic tubes and pots and pans,  
Bits and pieces and  
Magic from my hands will make  
  
Weird Science!  
Things we've never seen before,  
Behind bolted doors   
Of my own imagination  
  
Weird Science!  
Not what teacher said to do,  
Making dreams come true  
Living tissue born flesh  
  
Weird Science!  
Plastic tubes and pots and pans,  
Bits and pieces and  
Bits and pieces!"  
--Oingo Boingo  
"Weird Science"  
  
========  
  
Every time he entered the intensive care ward, he had to steel himself for the sight of the body on the gurney. How he had hurt her in life, and how he could not afford to fail her now.  
  
The last time he saw her, she was standing on the tarmac watching his copter lift away. He didn't know if she would answer his ultimatum, but he was too scared to speak to her. He knew that the moment he forced her to chose between his life and her own, the relationship was over. And Riley Finn, the Gutless Wonder, simply couldn't face her.  
  
Now he stood beside the gurney, observing her corpse.  
  
Not that anyone could recognize the form and person of Buffy Summers inside the thick layer of gauze wrappings that mummified her, or the maze of tubes that snaked their way into her lifeless body. Nutrients were being forced into her to supplement her useless muscles. Protoplasm was injected into her veins to simulate heart functions. A synthetic osteoblast solution was introduced to repair her shattered bones. Miraculously, her autonomic functions--her heartbeat and her breathing--had been successfully restarted. But she was not truly alive. Not yet.  
  
The door behind Riley opened, and a gaunt figure in a lab coat walked in. "Any change, Mr. Finn?"  
  
"Negative, Dr. Brahams," Riley answered. "Subject is still responding to the artificial osteoblasts and the neurosurgical nanobots, but she still hasn't attained consciousness."  
  
Dr. Brahams scowled briefly. "If only we had some of her blood on hand," he mused. "A simple transfusion may be all that is required to restore her."  
  
"We have her blood type on file, Dr--" Riley was cut off in mid-sentence by a curt swipe of the doctor's hand.  
  
"No, my son," he whispered in a gravelly voice. "Not her blood type, her blood. Her genetic factors may be the key to her resurrection."  
  
Riley thought briefly. He hid his emotions from the doctor, behind a thin veneer of professionalism. Inside, he seethed. They were so close to bringing her back, but now there was no way to complete her resurrection. Unless--  
  
It was a dangerous prospect, but perhaps--- "How close to those factors have to be to work?"  
  
"Very close," Brahams answered. "A bare minimum of 80% accuracy would be required."  
  
Riley looked thoughtfully at the doctor. "Well, she does have a sister..."  
  
========  
  
Xander and Anya had called Giles that morning, asking if they could speak to him that night. Giles was surprisingly eager to speak to him about the dream. He had to wonder if he had suffered through a similar dream. He stood before the former Watcher's front door, steeling the courage to speak to him on this matter. He leaned toward Anya and kissed her for luck.  
  
"Hey guys," a familiar and welcome voice greeted the young man before he could knock on Giles' door. He and Anya turned and saw Willow and Tara walking toward the steps. "How are things with you?"  
  
"Hey Wills, Tara," Xander smiled. "How are my two favorite fish without bicycles?"  
  
"We're good," Tara said simply. She glanced at Willow, who nodded slightly. "Yeah, not too terrible." The young blond wiccan wasn't ready to tell the others of her plans to leave Sunnydale, and Willow was just as glad not to deal with that reality just yet. Whatever short time they had together was time she would cherish. "What brings you guys here, anyway?"  
  
Xander blinked suddenly at Willow's innocent question; the same question had occurred to him regarding the two witches. "Ah, you know, just here to harass the Watcher. We don't have a major league baseball team here, so we gotta make our own fun, right?"  
  
Willow looked at her childhood friend and his fiancée, her eyes calm and unreadable. "You've had a Primal Slayer dream too, huh?"  
  
Xander sighed slightly. He knew he couldn't pull one over on his closest friend. "Yeah. You too, huh?"  
  
"Yeah, something like that," Willow admitted. "You think Giles had one?"  
  
"It's possible," Anya shrugged non-committally. "I guess there's only one way to find out."  
  
Xander quietly knocked on the door, which was soon opened by a haggard looking Giles. "Oh, hello. Come in, please," he ushered the younger people into his home. "Please, make yourselves comfortable. Would you care for something to drink?"  
  
"Decaffeinated tea, please," Anya said brightly as she cuddled next to Xander on the easy chair. Willow and Tara nodded at her suggestion as they sat close to each other on the couch, and Giles repaired to the kitchen to fetch the tea.  
  
"Mr. Giles," Tara asked gently as Giles returned with a tray of teacups, "when are you and Dawn going to England?"  
  
Giles paused briefly at the question. "I'm not certain, actually, Tara. I was offered a position within the Council, and Dawn has said that she wants to leave Sunnydale. I don't really know if it's right to take her away from here so soon after all she's been through."  
  
"Can't say I blame her," Xander admitted. "Inside of two months, she lost her entire family. Oh, that reminds me, how much trouble did Mr. Summers give you?"  
  
"Not too much," Giles admitted. "We had a meeting of the minds."  
  
"In other words, you bounced him off a few walls."  
  
Giles stared hard at Xander, but didn't deny anything he had said. He simply snorted an acknowledgement. "Suffice it to say that he won't contest his late ex-wife's wishes."  
  
"Say," Anya asked suddenly, "where's Slayer Jr. anyway?"  
  
"Oh, Dawn's visiting some friends tonight. I told her to hurry straight home and stick to well-lit streets." He stared into his tea, as though he sought answers in its dark surface. "I'm worried about her," he admitted calmly. "She's so dead set on us moving to England, but I'm not sure that simply uprooting Dawn from the home we've both known for the last five years is the solution. Not for either of us. I wish I could talk to her more freely about her family's deaths. To get her to open up. But all I can do is let her mourn in her own way."  
  
"And be there for her when she needs you," Tara answered solemnly.  
  
"And we'll be there for her as well," Willow added. "We're her family too." Xander and Anya nodded silently at Willow's words.   
  
"Aye, that you are," Giles answered, cracking a slight smile. "That we all are." He looked at the faces of his surrogate family, and the heaviness that had enveloped his heart for so long lifted, if only for a while. He sipped his Earl Grey, and changed the subject. "Now then, Xander, if I'm not wrong, you and Anya have some news to report."  
  
Xander sputtered, almost choking on his tea. "How-how did you know?"  
  
"I noticed that Anya had called for decaf," Giles observed. "And the way she's been surprisingly quiet this evening. Am I wrong in my assumptions, Anya?"  
  
Anya blushed crimson as she took another draught of her tea. "No, Giles, you're not. Guys," she announced to the others, as she took Xander's hand in her own, "Xander and I are having a baby."  
  
Willow and Tara sat quietly at Anya's words. Giles, however, rose admirably to the occasion. He walked over to Anya and grasped her hands in his. "Congratulations, my friends. Congratulations indeed."  
  
"Yeah, Congrats guys," Willow added, embracing her long-time friend Xander while Tara gave Anya a welcoming hug. Willow even ended up hugging Anya, who received her embrace warmly. Whatever animosity they ever shared before was no longer a major concern between them. Willow was truly happy for Anya, and was glad that the former vengeance demon was part of Xander's life.  
  
After the impromptu group hug dispersed, and they all sat down again, Giles continued, "Now then, I suppose that the announcement of your impending parenthood is not the main reason you're here." The others looked around, realizing what he was about to say. "Before you ask, yes, I know that you, Willow, and you, Xander, both had Slayer dreams. As did I. I must assume that our dreams are related in some way."  
  
Willow looked at Xander, searching his eyes for some sign. Xander looked at his friend again, and nodded. "Yeah, something like that," Willow started. "In my dream, Tara was painting designs on my back, when--"  
  
"Back-painting again?" Anya quipped. "What is it about you and back painting, is this a fetish with you?" Four pairs of eyes glared at Xander's fiancée. Anya suddenly shrunk back into Xander's lap, saying, "Right, private conversation stuff. Sorry."  
  
"If I may," Willow glanced back at Anya, "anyway, then I felt something, some shift in weight, and when I looked back, I saw her. The Primal Slayer. She was crouched over me, wearing a Superman t-shirt. She took my hand, and placed it on her chest," she indicated where she had touched the phantom Slayer, over her heart. "She said something to me, 'Take this', she said, she'd be coming back for it."  
  
"Take what?" Tara asked.  
  
"I don't know, honey," Willow answered. "All I know is that some-- some thing entered me. Some kind of energy, a presence, a, a, oooh--" She furrowed her brow in frustration at being unable to explain her dream. "It was like a living part of her. I wish I could describe it better."  
  
"Her soul, perhaps?" Giles suggested. "Or a part of it?"  
  
"Yeah," Willow grabbed onto that line of reasoning quickly. "Like a piece of her soul." She smiled in realization. "Yeah, the last time I dreamed about the Primal Slayer, she took my soul from me. Maybe she's returned it?"  
  
"Yeah," Xander agreed. "Like in my dream. She tore my heart out in the first dream. But last night, I got a look at me with my son, like ten years from now, and then she gave me a human heart."  
  
"And in my dream," Giles nodded, "I met her at Buffy's gravestone," he paused in recollection, "where she placed her hand on my head, and I felt some sort of-- of energy flow through me. She had entrusted me with a part of her, her mind I believe. She said, I had to keep it for her, that I would know when the time comes."  
  
"Just once," Xander grumbled, "would it be too much to ask that our shared dreams not be so cryptic? Just for the novelty factor." Anya, sitting between Xander's knees, grasped his hand in sympathy.   
  
Willow shrugged her shoulders at Xander's words. "Sounds pretty straightforward to me. I dunno, it kinda feels like a farewell message." The others sat silent at her words. "I mean it, guys. I think it was like a goodbye from Buffy, y'know? Like she was thanking us for being there, for being her support system."  
  
Giles shook his head and smiled; was this the same timid young girl who befriended Buffy nearly five years ago? Not for the first time, he acknowledged the debt that he and the others would always owe Buffy Anne Summers. Not just for saving them, not even for giving everything she had, up to and including her life, to keep the world turning another day. But for enriching their lives, for making this disparate group of peoples a true family, for bringing out the best in each life she touched.  
  
She showed a true mirror to Willow Rosenberg's soul, revealing it as the bright and beautiful thing it was. She brought her out of shadow and into the light where she would flourish.  
  
She gave friendship to Xander Harris, whose life was sadly lacking even the most basic of human contact and taught him to love. Not just to lust, but to love. And to love himself.  
  
She taught Rupert Giles by her own example to think for himself, not to merely repeat for rote the tired doctrine of the Watchers Council. She showed him that it was good to say no to the ones in charge.  
  
"Soul, heart and mind," Giles intoned aloud, not caring if the others were listening. "I don't care what the vision in the desert revealed to you, Buffy, you were wrong. Death was not your gift. Your heart, your soul, your mind, these were your gifts. You were your gift, to us and to the world."  
  
"A-smeggin'-men!" Xander replied emphatically, as he raised his teacup. "To Buffy Summers. She didn't just save our lives, she made them worth saving."  
  
"To Buffy," the others chorused. They sat together in silence for ten seconds. Somehow, the silent memory of their parted friend -- sister, daughter, and beloved -- seemed appropriate.  
  
The chime of a doorbell broke the silence. Giles answered the door, and was met by someone he hadn't expected to see, nor did he particularly wish to see him again.   
  
Nevertheless, he was British, which meant he was genetically disposed to politeness. "Graham," Giles greeted the young man who rang his doorbell. "Do come in, please. Would you care for some tea?"  
  
"Sorry, Giles," the blond soldier waived his offer. "I'm not here on a social call." He saw the other Scoobs gathered in Giles' living room. "I'm glad you're all here, you need to know this."  
  
"What's the deal, khaki boy?" Xander glowered at Graham. He still didn't trust anyone with a military rank.  
  
"It's about the Initiative," Graham said plainly. "They've regrouped, back in their old bunker. They're trying to restart the ADAM project."  
  
Giles did a double take as the news registered. "Dear lord," he muttered, "those fools aren't trying to rebuild that modern Frankenstein, are they?"  
  
"Worse than that," Graham answered. "If I'm right, they're going to use Buffy's body for the new ADAM soldier." The others fell into shocked silence at these words. Xander's grip tightened to the point where he broke the teacup he was holding with one bare hand. Willow gasped and Tara instinctively took her hand, desperate to sooth her beloved.   
  
"How? How is this possible?" Giles barked tonelessly, and the others felt a terrible dread at his voice; Ripper was coming out to play.  
  
"Near as I can figure, someone from the Initiative was able to replace her corpse with a dummy, or a cosmetically altered corpse of someone else, just before the funeral. They have her body now, and are planning to use it. And I'm afraid that Riley Finn's a part of the whole thing."  
  
As Willow weighed the soldier's news, a terrible image came to her mind, cold steel table, shiny, shiny tools with such sharp edges. A single light shining directly from above at the figure underneath a sterile white sheet. The sheet being cast aside to reveal the naked corpse underneath, treated with none of the respect it is due as white dressed monsters poke and prod, cut and violate. Buffy, her friend, her truest, closest friend, turned into so much raw material. Circuitry snaking around her body, connecting her to gunmetal gray weaponry.   
  
Willow wasn't aware that she was hyperventilating until she felt the rim of a plastic bag that someone had fetched from Giles' kitchen around her mouth. "Here, honey, try to breath slowly," she could hear Tara's voice from the fog of her mind, as she started to recover from her dizzy spell. "That's it, Willow, calm slow breaths."  
  
As Willow was regaining her equilibrium, Giles was questioning Graham further; "You said that Riley was part of this-- this abomination."  
  
"He went AWOL a couple of weeks ago," Graham explained, "along with several other officers who were with the Initiative originally. I've been sent to investigate, and if possible to apprehend Lieutenant Finn. If what I fear is true, I'm to signal my superior in Los Angeles, and she'll send in the troops to close it down. But I need your help, all of you, to stop Riley, and bring him in." He straightened himself up, and faced the others. "May I count on your cooperation?"  
  
Silence for a moment. Then Willow, speaking for the others, said simply; "Hell yeah!"  
  
========  
  
She knew that she should have stuck to the well-lit main streets, but the sun was still up. She thought she could cut across Whetherly Park quickly and make it back to Giles' place before sundown. But she had lost track of time with her friends at the mall, and the sun was already halfway down the horizon. She ran faster, hoping that she wouldn't be accosted by vamps, but ready to deal with them if necessary.  
  
Dawn knew that Giles would be angry with her if he learned that she had started teaching herself some fighting moves. Nothing to fancy, she figured; just enough to throw off any attackers and give her enough time to make a clean getaway. She didn't entertain any aspirations of being a Slayer; indeed, Giles had heard from the Council that no new Slayer had been called after Buffy died. But she still thought she could avoid any vamps if she had to.  
  
A creak of branches behind her made her stop in her tracks. She stood motionless, listening for any other movements. "Ooh kay," she whispered. "Who's out there?" She perked her ears as another branch snapped, and flew out away from the snap. She ran hard, in a straight line, making her way out of the park as quickly as possible. Just get back home, she thought, just get back to Giles, before whatever's out there canUNGH!!!  
  
She picked herself up from the sudden collision with whatever had stepped in front of her. A large figure stood before her in the semi-darkness of dusk, blocking her path. "Watch it, Fang," she shouted at the dark figure. "I don't know karate, but I know ka-razy!"  
  
"Hey, easy, Dawnie, easy," the figure spoke, in a strangely familiar voice. Dawn blinked, as her eyes grew more accustomed to the low light. She was slowly able to make out the man's features, and gasped at her sudden recognition. "Riley?"  
  
"Yeah, squirt, it's me," the soldier greeted her warmly. "I just got back from my assignment in Belize when I heard--" he hesitated, "--about her."  
  
Dawn glared hard at Riley, her expression one of sour displeasure. "Yeah, well I'm still not speaking to you. You hurt her, y'know, ducking out like you did."  
  
"I know, Dawn," he admitted quietly. "First sign of trouble, I took the coward's way out. I'm not excusing myself there. I'm just sorry that I wasn't able to make things right with Buffy before it was too late."  
  
Dawn's expression softened as Riley spoke to her. She still didn't understand why Buffy and Riley had fallen apart so quickly, but she didn't blame Riley solely for the fallout. "But it's gonna be okay now," Riley was saying. "I'm gonna make it right between us."  
  
Dawn looked puzzled at Riley. "What do you mean, make it right?"  
  
Riley didn't say anything more to her. He just held her in his arms for a second. Before Dawn could ask again, she felt a sharp pinch at the base of her neck. Then, vertigo and blackness.  
  
Riley picked up the slumped teenager and cradled her gently as he carried her to the waiting vehicle. He still didn't feel comfortable about this, kidnapping an innocent young girl for her blood. Right about then he felt as low as the vampires he used to hunt.  
  
He dismissed these thoughts quickly, his military training taking over. There was an eternal war between the Light and the Dark. And in every war, both sides took on heavy causalities. And if Dawn Summers had to give up her life in order to restore a weapon that would spell the difference between victory and damnation in this war, then so be it.  
  
Riley drove the unconscious girl back to Initiative Headquarters, a grim determination in his eyes. What he was doing was right. He could not start questioning his beliefs now. Not when he was so close to getting Buffy back.   
  
As he drove off, he didn't notice a pair of darkened, hooded eyes, eyes that witnessed Dawn's abduction. Eyes that recognized the soldier who committed the crime. Eyes that flashed angry fire as Dawn was carted away.  
  
"That's it, ya ponce," Spike growled. "I don't care about the soddin' chip, I'm gonna rip out your liver and stuff it down your throat before I'm through with ya! No one messes with the Niblet, not on my watch!" He pulled out a cellular and started to dial.  
  
========  
  
"Thanks, Spike," Graham answered. "I'll tell the others." He folded his cell-phone and faced the others. "They got Dawn," he said, leading to gasps around the room. Giles could feel that familiar burning within him, that part of himself he always called "The Ripper" straining at the leash, demanding to be set free.  
  
"Okay," Xander intoned angrily. "What do we do now?"  
  
"Spike's tailing the truck where Riley put Dawn," Graham said, "and he'll inform me when he finds where they took her."  
  
"It seems to me," Giles observed, "that their old site would be the only place where they could be located safely. If they only deserted the service a couple of weeks ago, they haven't had the time to create a new headquarters, certainly not one with equipment they would require to recreate Adam."  
  
"Good point, Giles," Graham answered. "And Spike said that the truck was heading that general direction from Whetherly Park."  
  
"So let's saddle up, gang!" Xander announced, springing from his seat. Noticing Anya's sudden movement from her seat, he stopped her, saying, "No, Anya, not you. Not while you're pregnant."  
  
Anya leveled a cool glare at her fiancée. "Consider yourself fortunate that I'm not a demon anymore, Xand."  
  
"Hey," Xander defended himself; "I just don't want anything to happen to my family." He collected Anya in his arms, saying, "The Initiative were tough customers, Ahn, and if they're gonna turn Buffy into another Adam, I'd rather not have you in the line of fire. Please permit the expectant father his moment of paranoia for your safety, huh?"  
  
Anya warmed her disposition as she usually did under Xander's ministrations. "Only if you allow me my moment as well, hon. I want you there to change the dirty diapers too, y'know."  
  
"I'm so there," promised Xander. He looked once more in Anya's eyes, and saw her reluctant acceptance.  
  
"Hey," Tara offered. "Why don't Anya and I hold down the fort for you guys?" Willow glanced back at Tara, her brow furrowed. "You sure about that, honey?" she asked.  
  
"Hey, like I said last night," Tara was suddenly very interested in her hands as they lay in her lap. "You're the hero. Go get B-Buffy's body back. She deserves b-better."  
  
A few weeks before Buffy's death, Willow had noticed how the persistent stutter that Tara suffered from had faded completely. Now, two months after the terrible ordeal Glory had put her through, it was back in full force. She was afraid of losing Tara for good, to her enrollment to Berkeley, and to her old insecurities. Willow's heart went out to Tara, but the look of determination in her love's eyes told her all that she needed to know. "Never should have taught you the 'Resolve Face'," Willow grumped. She gave Tara a brief hug and, her own Resolve Face in place, joined Xander, Giles and Graham.  
  
"You ready?" she asked. The others nodded silently. "Then let's do it."  
  
Four grim-faced and determined figures departed for the old Initiative headquarters, intent on undoing a terrible evil. To rescue the body of the last true heroine of the twentieth century, and insure that this macabre crime did not go unpunished.  
  
One last mission. For Buffy.  



	6. The Modern Prometheus

  
Chapter six  
The Modern Prometheus  
  
"I'm mixing up a bunch of magic stuff,  
A magic mushroom cloud of care,  
A potion that'll rock, the boat will rock  
And make a bomb of love and blow it up!  
  
I did it!  
Do you think I've gone too far?  
I did it!  
Guilty as charged.  
I did it!  
It was me right or wrong.  
I did it!  
Yeah-  
  
I never did a single thing that did a single thing  
To change the ugly ways of the world.  
I didn't know it felt so right inside  
I didn't know it all.  
I opened up the curtains  
I heard sirens there, the lights flash and crawl  
But I did it justice  
I just did it for the buzz, oh."  
--Dave Matthews  
"I Did It"  
  
"Is everything ready?" Riley asked Dr. Brahams as the hypodermic needle punctured the young girl's skin.  
  
"I don't see why not, Mr. Finn," Dr. Brahams said as he puttered about. "The young girl, uh, what did you say her name was?"  
  
"Dawn," Riley supplied the name. "Dawn Summers. The Slayer's sister."  
  
"Ah yes," Dr. Brahams muttered. "Dawn, her blood is almost identical in its genetic structure to Miss Summers' blood. If it weren't for the difference in their ages, I would say that they were twins." He taped a tube to Dawn's arm, and fed the other end of the tube to the i. v. device affixed to the mummified figure on the gurney next to Dawn. "We'll take the transfusion slow. Too much of her blood at once may place the test subject's body into shock. Besides, we must allow Dawn to recover from her blood loss. We may need her blood later, nicht vahr?"  
  
"Indeed," Riley nodded as he observed Dr. Brahams continuing his ministrations. He hated the Germanic doctor, his haughty superiority, his treatment of the body wrapped in gauze as a 'test subject'.   
  
The 'test subject's' name was Buffy Summers. She had been a vibrant, beautiful and dedicated woman, one who was plunged into a world she had no desire to enter, a world of dark shadows and soulless beasts. She gave all, up to and including her life, to protect the world from the things that went bump in the night.  
  
And if what they planned tonight was a success, she would live again.   
  
She would know that Riley Finn was the instrument of her salvation. And she would love him for it.  
  
She would be his again. That's all that mattered.  
  
And if that meant suffering the smug self-righteousness of the Dr. Brahamses of the world, then it was a small price for Riley Finn to pay, to be allowed to hold her and make love to her again.  
  
She would be his.  
  
========  
  
"Spike," Graham called on his cellular as he and the others drove toward their rendezvous. "Can you verify their location?"  
  
"Yep," Spike whispered into his cellular, "the old hangout. What's the plan, Number Two?"  
  
"Would you please stop calling me that?" Graham asked, knowing that the question was in vain. It galled him, this forced partnership with Spike; from what Graham had gathered he'd have been vile enough as a human, as a vampire he was simply evil. Sighing in resignation, he continued; "I've got the rest of the gang here with me, we're driving up that way right now. Giles'll take Xander and Willow in his team, I'll meet you at the main entrance. We'll enter from both points."  
  
"Sounds like you're making it up as you go along," Spike mused. "I like that, mate. Meet ya here, Number Two." Spike shut off the connection before the soldier could protest. He smiled, imagining his chagrin at his nickname. Yeah, he could feel that familiar bloodlust emerge, as though from an extended hibernation. Chip or no chip, he had warned Graham the previous evening. Chip or no chip, someone was going to die for profaning her grave.  
  
And Spike could feel his incisors extend at the thought.  
  
========  
  
No words were spoken as the four of them emerged from Giles' car. Their expressions of quiet determination and righteous anger spoke volumes. They knew the plan, and were as prepared as they could be to carry it out.   
  
They waited by the car for Spike to emerge. The neutered vampire obliged them easily. His grim, stoic demeanor surprised Willow and the others. He had none of the bluster, none of his trademark arrogance. In its place stood a grim purpose. He was a man with a mission, a knight riding forth to avenge the desecration of his lady's grave. When he met the others, he only had one thing to say; "Let's do it, people."  
  
The others silently agreed, and Graham and Spike ventured toward the front door. The vampire and soldier waited for the three Scoobs to make their exit, then approached the entrance. Graham went first; he had an idea where the wires and alarms were, and knew how to pass through without activating them. In one instance, he was able to bluff his way past with his old Initiative ID card. Apparently the fools had forgotten to de-classify him. Spike followed the soldier's lead as they passed through the front door and through the first hallway.  
  
"This way," Graham whispered, pointing to an emergency stairway. "The only place where they could do whatever they're doing to Buffy and Dawn is in the basement, in the labs where Adam was created."  
  
"HOSTILE!" someone shouted from the hall as Spike reached for the stairway door. "We got a hostile here!" Two guards rushed toward Graham and Spike, high-tech looking rifles at the ready.  
  
Spike stood his ground, his arrogance apparent in his posture. "Hostile? Me? Not yet, boys, but just keep waving those pig-stickers in my face and I will get hostile."  
  
"Just keep 'em where I can see 'em," the lead guard answered. Spike leered at the guard, and took a step forward. The guard fired his rifle, and an arc of blue-white energy leapt over the vampire's head.  
  
"That was a warning shot, Hostile 17," the guard shouted, "my next one won't miss!"  
  
"Oh, please," Spike purred, stepping closer to the guard. "Call me Spike. Everyone else does."  
  
"Yeah, we know you, 17," the guard's voice was loud but not convincingly forceful. Spike could smell the epinephrine in the guard's sweat, he could smell his fear. He found that smell sweet and pungent. "We know that you can't touch us without doubling over in pain, thanks to that chip in your head."   
  
Spike regarded the rifles that the two guards were holding. "Issat so? Then why, oh why, did your superiors arm you with EMP rifles?" He stepped closer, as the guard stuck the gun's tip into his chest. He shrugged it off, knowing that the two guards were too scared to act on their own. "You know what EMP means, don't you? That's Electro-Magnetic Pulse. And electromagnetic pulses tend to disrupt microcircuitry. Oh yeah. You just shorted out my chip, buddy. So I can do," he leaned in, his face morphing into his vamp mode, "anything to you that I want." He leaned further, until his yellowish eyes were inches away from the guard's eyes. He smiled and whispered, "This is the part where you drop your guns and run away to warn your superiors. BOO!"  
  
Two rifles clattered to the floor as their wielders ran from the living nightmare that leered over them. Spike stooped low and picked up the two rifles, tossing one to Graham. "Here ya go, partner. Try not to miss."  
  
Graham looked at the rifle, and then back to Spike. "Hey, this isn't an EMP rifle, it's a standard issue stun-rifle."  
  
Spike examined his weapon. "So it is, so it is. Tell ya what, you don't tell Stan and Cartman, and neither will I." Heading for the door, he continued, "Come on, man, our cover's two seconds away from being blown." A siren hacked through the air, screaming out warning. The two fighters charged down the stairs, toward the labs.  
  
========  
  
Willow led the way down the elevator shaft, with Xander and Giles close behind. She looked around her as they silently rappelled down the shaft. You're a strange girl, Willow Rosenberg. Only you could get nostalgic about an elevator shaft.  
  
It was here, over a year ago, where she had reconciled with Buffy after their blowout over Tara. Spike had tried to turn the gang against each other, and the newly born romance between Willow and Tara was just the perfect sticking point. The fact that Buffy'd been too involved with Riley Finn and the Initiative to see how Willow was changing.   
  
He was sent by Adam to shake up the gang, to strip Buffy of her support structure before her final battle with Adam. But Spike had failed. As Buffy and the others made their way down the shaft, she, Willow and Xander stopped long enough to renew that special bond.  
  
"I love you, Buffy," Willow had said. "You're my best friend."  
  
She found herself fighting back tears as she recalled the group hug that they had engaged in over thirty feet off the ground, suspended by their rappelling ropes. Somehow, that connection was still there, would always be there, no matter how much they changed. Willow was not the same fragile girl she was five years ago. Xander was no longer the insecure goof. Cordelia, from what Angel had told them, was not the same flighty social butterfly. All these changes brought about by Buffy.  
  
And it was out of respect to Buffy that they were here this evening. To undo the sick dream of a group of misguided individuals. To prevent them from recreating Adam, in Buffy's body.  
  
They had to succeed. Willow wouldn't accept no less, not for her best friend.  
  
The sudden wail of an alarm siren cut through her thoughts like an ax through dry timber. "Guys," she announced, "we'd better speed it up!" She paid out more rope faster, and sped her descent down the shaft.  
  
Once they reached the next available elevator door, Xander was able to jimmy the door open, and the three slipped out of the shaft. They looked around, keeping close to the wall, in order to get their bearings. Willow recognized this hallway from the last time they were here, the final battle with ADAM. And there was something else, something familiar about her surroundings-  
  
Her musings were silenced by the sound of hurried footfalls down the corridor. The sound brought her to a quick state of concentration. A squad of four security guards were racing down the hallway. Giles and Xander flattened themselves against the wall, fearful that their cover's been blown. They knew that there was nowhere to hide from the advancing guards.  
  
The guards double-timed past them, uncaring of their presence.  
  
Giles and Xander looked at the guards as they ran past them, relieved but concerned as to how they went unnoticed. Xander glanced toward Willow, and saw the knowing smile on her face. "Care to share, oh great sorceress?"  
  
Willow faked an innocent gaze. "Nothing much, just a little 'Jedi Mind Trick'. I encouraged them to see what they expected to see, nothing more."  
  
"Hmm," Giles mused. "Very good. But judging from the heightened activity around here, we must assume that Spike acted with somewhat less subtlety."   
  
"I say following those guards is as good a plan as any." Xander suggested. "Wherever they got Buffy's body stashed is probably the most closely guarded room here. We follow them, we find Buffy and Dawn."  
  
"Then let's do it," Willow nodded. The three friends pursued the guards.  
  
========   
  
"Bloody hell," Riley cursed under his breath. "What's going on out there?"  
  
"Intruders have entered the compound," a security officer called in on the intercom. "They're heading straight toward you!"  
  
"Send more guards over here, to safeguard the experiment," Dr. Brahams ordered. "She must not be disturbed at this delicate stage of the process!"   
  
Before Dr. Brahams could get back to his monitors and readouts, the door flew off its hinges, impacted by the force of a flying kick. Spike stood before the scientists, his face contorted into a mask of terror, a horrible gleam in his yellow eyes. "Okay mates," he intoned, "who dies first?"  
  
Riley jumped forward, his arms resting at his side in a defensive posture. "Bring it on, dead man," he hissed. "You can't do anything to me."  
  
"Keep believing that, ponce!" Spike stepped forward, his every movement flowing, almost liquid-  
  
Until the chip that governed his actions for the last two years kicked in, that is. Scientists at the Initiative had designed the chip, to induce terrible pain in Spike if he should ever attempt to harm anything living. Now, as he lunged toward the deserter, his vision red-misted with rage, his intent to kill the bastard who dared lay unclean hands to Buffy's body, the chip kicked in. His body jerked suddenly as though crushed in a giant's hand. But he wasn't going to let that stop him. He would not be deterred from dealing a portion of the pain he experienced to Riley.  
  
A thousand lances pierced his flesh, and still he moved forward. A thousand fires scalded his skin, and still he moved forward. A thousand tons crushed his bones, and still he moved forward. With every iota of his strength, he resisted the chip, willing his legs to carry him, step by step, toward his target.  
  
All he could see was the smugly grinning face of Riley Finn. All he desired was to wipe that grin off his face with a well-thrown punch. That desire sustained him, helping him block the excruciating pain created by the chip long enough for him to pull his fist back and let it fly with all his remaining power.  
  
The foolish soldier didn't even think to defend himself. He found himself flat on his back, his chin bruised and bleeding, from the force of Spike's blow. By then, the release of the blow forced Spike to double over with the pain he still felt, long enough for security officers to restrain him. As the pain subsided, he lifted his head toward the sprawled soldier, and grinning, said "Gotcha!"  
  
"That'll do, Spike," a voice behind him said. Graham had watched the vampire's display, and felt somewhat relieved that they were in the same camp for now. He stood over Riley's body, and offered a hand to lift his old friend to his feet.  
  
Riley refused the offer. "I know why you're here," he said bitterly, his hand massaging the welt on his chin. "You're here to arrest me for desertion, right?"  
  
"I'm sorry, Riley," Graham said, "but I have no choice. If you and the others surrender now, I may put in a good word, make sure that the JAG goes easy on you."  
  
"Sorry, Graham, but I can't do that. Not when we're so close to completing the experiment. We're bringing her back, Graham. We're bringing Buffy back."  
  
"Are you insane? Look at this place, Riley, and ask yourself how you could possibly side with these monsters. The Initiative, what they did, that was evil, Riley. How could you become part of that evil again?"  
  
"You're wrong, Graham," Riley countered. "Sure, ADAM was evil, Maggie Walsh may have been evil, but this place, what we're trying to do here, this is not evil. Don't you see? We're on the verge of restoring the best of us. The greatest warrior of the Light!"  
  
Graham shook his head in disbelief at how blind his friend had become. "Yeah, I know what you're up to. You're trying to resurrect the dead. You honestly think that the ADAM project will work on her? Do you believe that that… thing that comes out of that cocoon will bear any resemblance to the Buffy Summers you knew?"  
  
"I don't know what'll happen," Riley admitted, "but if she lives, then the fall of the first Initiative will not have been in vain."  
  
"The Initiative was a mistake, Riley," Graham pleaded. "We tried to make super-soldiers out of demons. We tried to resurrect soulless things, and thought we could control them. What we did was immoral, an abomination against nature."  
  
"You want an abomination?" Riley shouted. "What about that thing? He's still allowed to live, while Buffy's dead! That ain't right! And when I'm through, that mistake will be corrected."  
  
"What about Dawn?" Graham asked. "Does she have to die for your mad scheme?"  
  
"Don't worry about her," Riley answered. "She'll live. We're not going to lose her. Her blood is too valuable for us. And you really have no say in this matter Graham." He gestured toward the security officers who held an angered Spike in their restraints. "It's just the two of you against all of us."  
  
"Let me guess," a familiar voice called out, "you flunked math in high school." Willow, Xander and Giles entered the room, Willow taking point. Two of the guards tried to rush them, but Willow just shot them a sour look, and a force pushed them back, away from the three interlopers. "Oh, don't look too surprised, Lieutenant Poop-head. You desecrated the grave of my best friend, and you didn't expect me to come back for her?"  
  
Riley regarded Willow's face, her expression, her posture. Her eyes flashed an angry fire, her jaw rigid and set in hatred, her posture defiant and angry. "So," Riley mocked. "This is the part where you beat me to death with a shovel?"  
  
"Shovel?" Willow answered in a feigned innocence. "I don't need a shovel." With an angry gesture, Willow threw Riley's body against the wall with the force of a large truck. The second Riley impacted the wall, the guards let go of Spike, and rushed toward Willow.  
  
"Back off!" she shouted, and the guards were thrown back, not as forcefully as Riley, but hard enough to knock the wind out of them. Her attention turned from Riley, he collapsed to the floor in a disheveled heap. He managed to stumble back to his feet, but he recognized that Willow wanted him dead, and had the power to back up her anger.  
  
"Willow, listen to me," he pleaded. "Look, I'm sorry about kidnapping Dawn, but it was necessary for the experiment to succeed. Don't you see? We're this close to bringing her back! Bringing back your best friend!"  
  
"My best friend?" Willow cried, desperately trying to control the rage that threatened to overtake her voice. "My best friend is nowhere here. She died saving the world from Glory. All you have is her body, the box that carried her spirit."   
  
She approached Riley, her face softening. She looked at the young soldier's face, and thought she could see the young man who Buffy loved, even for all his shortcomings, all his mistakes. She pleaded with that man, hoping to reach him through kindness. "Buffy-all that was really her, her soul, her strength, her heart-those things are gone forever. You can't bring them back, no matter how advanced your technology. She's gone, Riley." She reached out her hand to him, silently offering to wipe the tears that began to fall from his eyes. "I'm sorry. I loved her too. And I'll miss her every day of my life. But I'll have those days, we'll both have those days, because of her sacrifice."  
  
Riley measured her words, heard her voice, looked into her eyes, and saw that there was no artifice, no sense of lying. He felt the sincerity emanating from her. He reached his hand out to hers, to accept the truth of her words.  
  
"Finn!" Dr. Brahams suddenly shouted. "We have vital signs! She may be coming around!"  
  
Riley suddenly jerked away from Willow, who stepped back in fear of the nearly insane smile that split his face. "You were wrong, Willow," he laughed. "She is coming back!" He rushed toward the gurney, as Dr. Brahams hurriedly unraveled the gauze bandages that swathed the body. Willow tried to stop Riley, but the guards she threw back suddenly grabbed her and the others, restraining them.  
  
After unveiling several layers of gauze, Dr. Brahams stopped with just the final layer remaining around Buffy's body, just covering her breasts and midsection. For a moment, Willow, looking on from a distance, found herself thinking that Buffy made a rather sexy mummy. Dr. Brahams then grabbed a pair of defibrillator paddles, ready to jolt the body to life if necessary. "Riley," he commanded, "check her vital signs."  
  
He started to rattle off figures; "Pulse is 40 over 120, slow but gaining. Breathing is getting stronger." Suddenly her eyes snapped open. Riley shone a pen light into her eyes. "Eyes dilated, but tracking. She's gaining consciousness! We're doing it!"  
  
"Dear God," Giles whispered. "Is it possible that they will succeed? That they've actually brought Buffy back?"  
  
"That's not Buffy, not our Buffy," Willow answered, sorrow consuming her. "They may have reanimated her body, but they can't bring back her soul."  
  
"And whatever comes out of their Frankenstein's Science Fair project," Xander added, "I don't think we're gonna like it."  
  
Riley and Dr. Brahams stood back in silence, as the figure on the gurney slowly raised her body to an upright position. Slowly, as though relearning how to move her muscles, she turned her head toward the young man to her left. "Ri…Ri…Riley? Riley Finn?"  
  
"Yeah, Buffy," Riley answered, overjoyed. "It's me, Riley."  
  
"You…you left me," she said haltingly. "You said…I…never loved you."  
  
"I know, and I'm so sorry. But it'll be different now. I know better…"  
  
Riley looked into Buffy's eyes, and slowly started to blanch. Buffy suddenly smiled at Riley, saying, "You were right." With blinding speed, she brought her hand to his head, and clamped her fingers down hard on his scalp. Riley yelped silently in pain as the resurrected woman seized his head. This went on for ten seconds, before she let go of the hapless soldier. She then let go, and he fell gracelessly to the floor.  
  
Graham rushed to his friend, taking his pulse and checking his eyes. "Riley, you okay?"  
  
Riley looked at Graham blankly. "The stars," he murmured. "I can see stars inside you. They're so beautiful."  
  
Willow gasped in terror. She had seen this happen before, when an evil woman grabbed the head of her beloved, her Tara, and leeched her mind from her. She exchanged looks with Spike, Giles and Xander, and their horrified expressions told her that they had arrived at the same conclusion.  
  
Dr. Brahams glared at the risen Slayer. "What did you do to him?" he demanded.  
  
"What, that?" she asked nonchalantly? "Something like…THIS!" She grabbed his head in one hand and pulled back sharply, snapping his neck. The guards, shaken from their state of shock, rushed the gurney. The Slayer jumped off, and delivered a lightning attack of kicks and punches, too fast for any eye to follow. Within seconds, she stood alone, amid a pile of broken bodies. Blood dried on her hands and in the ends of her tangled blond hair. Her smile reminded the Scoobs of a predator, of a wolf or a shark, just before making the kill.  
  
She walked casually toward the bed where an unconscious Dawn was being kept. Heart monitors and other diagnostic equipment pinged away steadily, displaying her life signs silently. "And how are we tonight, my little key?" she purred as she caressed her sister's cheek.  
  
She then turned toward the others and laughed. "What's the matter, friends? Aren't you glad to see me?" The others stood silently, unable to speak, gripped by a terror greater than anything they could imagine. The greatest evil they had ever faced was among them again, and this time, they had no slayer to protect them.  
  
"Face it, guys," she announced triumphantly. "I'm back, and in all my Glory!"  
  
  
  
  



	7. Ragged Glory

Chapter Seven  
Ragged Glory  
  
"In the locust wind   
Comes a rattle and hum.  
Jacob wrestled the angel   
And the angel was overcome.  
You plant a demon seed,  
You raise a flower of fire;  
See them burning crosses,  
See the flames higher and higher.  
  
Bullet the blue sky!  
Bullet the blue sky!"  
--U2  
"Bullet the Blue Sky"  
  
  
Two months ago;  
  
"Tell her it's over," Buffy shouted to the fallen figure at her feet, after Glory retreated into the mortal form of Ben for the last time. "She missed her shot. She goes. She ever, EVER comes near me and mine again," she left the sentence hanging, with just enough anger and menace in her voice to carry her message.  
  
"We won't. I swear." Ben gasped again. Buffy gave him a final, warning glare and dropped the hammer, then ran off to rescue her sister.  
  
As she left, Giles knelt gently over Ben. "Can you move?"  
  
"Need a . . . . .minute." Ben considered what had happened between himself and the Slayer. "She could have killed me."  
  
"No she couldn't. Never." Giles glared hard at Ben, a cold and terrible resolve in his heart. "And sooner or later Glory will re-emerge, and make Buffy pay for that mercy. And the world with her. Buffy even knows that."  
  
He was surprised at how easy it was for him to do this thing. How necessary it was, and how little remorse he felt. He knew that remorse would come later, he didn't care. He might hate himself for the rest of his life, but at least he knew that he would have a life. "And still she couldn't take a human life. She's a hero, you see," Giles explained to Ben, replacing his glasses. "She's not like us."  
  
"Us?"   
  
Giles said nothing; he simply acted. He placed his hand over Ben's nose and mouth, shutting off his airways. Ben's feeble struggles weren't enough to shake off Giles' efforts and soon the young intern and former slave of the mad Goddess was dead.   
  
Giles kept his face expressionless. He had no qualms about killing one man to save the world. To put the life of all over the life of one, that was the creed of the Slayer. He had to do this, to safeguard the world against Glory. By sacrificing Ben, he knew that Glory was dead as well.  
  
He was wrong.  
  
Ben's murder didn't kill Glory; it simply released her animus, her spirit. She drifted over the final battlefield, unfettered by mortal flesh or mortal failings. Bodiless she observed as the Key's blood dripped, opening the portal to her Hell realm. Sightless, she saw the Slayer dive into the portal, her body plummet to the ground with a bone-crushing force. Voiceless, she laughed with evil joy as the others gathered around the corpse of the Slayer.  
  
She lived and her enemy died. And she would claim another body, one that she could nurture as she did Ben.   
  
For how long, she had no recollection, but she flowed over and through the world, seeking a body worthy to contain her magnificence. One who was strong enough to contain her without being destroyed by the process. One who was beautiful enough to reflect the sheer perfection incarnate that was Glory.  
  
When she discovered what the so-called Initiative was doing with the fallen Slayer's body, Glory's malevolent laughter echoed through the farthest reaches of the most barren dimensions. Buffy Summers, the sister of the Key herself, being restored, body and mind, to life! It was simply too good to pass up. And without the hindrance of Buffy's soul in the way, it was simplicity itself for Glory to possess this new shell of flesh.  
  
All she had to do now was wait. Wait for the scientists to finish the work of restoring her new body. Wait for the proper moment when the Slayer's friends would enter, to halt the process.  
  
Wait for her dramatic entrance.  
  
And now the wait was over.  
  
========   
  
Present day;  
  
Graham had managed to give the incoherent Riley a sedative, rendering him unconscious. He would deal with him later. Provided, of course, that there was a later. From the tableau that unfolded before him, the odds weren't good.  
  
"So," smiled the madwoman who bore the body of their friend. "Who wants their brains sucked out first?"  
  
"You won't win, Glory," Giles growled at the woman. "We defeated you before, we'll beat you tonight."  
  
"Wrong, Watcher-boy," Glory laughed. "Buffy beat me last time. And now, get this, I'm Buffy! Isn't it ironic, dontcha think?"  
  
"You only wear her shape, you are not her!"  
  
"Details, details!" she mocked the Watcher. "All that you need to know is that this is the last night of your lives."  
  
"Not bloody likely!"   
  
Spike launched himself at the mad goddess, his fist connecting hard with her face. "You call yourself a goddess!" he snarled. "You're nothing more than another ambulatory corpse, just like the rest of 'em. And that means, sister," he added as she scrambled to get back on her feet, "that I don't have to hold back!"  
  
Knowing that this imposter wasn't the Buffy he knew, was nothing more than a walking corpse, meant that he didn't have to worry about the chip in his head stopping him. With each blow, with each fist, he channeled his pain, his rage and his anger. He pressed his attack and didn't let up, giving neither quarter nor sanctuary. "Come on," he snarled. "What the hell kind of goddess are ya? Livin' off someone's dead body! C'mon, you bitch, fight me! Fight me!"  
  
"You mean like...THIS?" she pushed him off of her and against the far wall. The hapless vampire struggled to attain a sitting position, dumbfounded by what she had managed to do to her.  
  
Glory staggered to her feet, wiping a trickle of blood away from her lip. "Oh, yeah, I was going to make it easy on you, Spike, but now I'm gonna make it messy!"  
  
"As messy as your face?" Xander shouted. The others looked at him, worry coloring their faces. "To paraphrase an ep of the original Star Trek, 'Behold, a goddess who bleeds!'" He pointed to her lip, still welted and reddened with blood. "Haven't gotten the hang of Buffy's body, have you?"  
  
"Dream on, Harris!" she shouted. "My strength is returning, and without the Slayer to stop me," she glanced at the mercifully sedated body of Dawn, on the nearby gurney, "I'll be able to use the Key again! Until then, I'm still more than capable of taking on the likes of you!"  
  
"Take this on!" Willow clasped her hands in front of her, forefingers pointing at Glory. She started muttering in a language all but forgotten to humanity. Her hands glowed briefly, then flashed an ethereal fire.  
  
Willow realized that attacking the body would do her no good; Glory would simply find another body to inhabit. She had to attack Glory's spirit, destroying her soul. The Spell of Soul-fire was her best option. And she was satisfied with the result.  
  
Glory contorted in pain as the soul-fire scorched her essence. It didn't burn her physically, but her animus felt a thousand fires of Hell licking her skin, charring her deeper than any mere physical flame can touch. Willow stood over Glory, watching without emotion as she writhed in pain. Giles and Xander watched this unfold, desperately seeking some sign of the sweet young Willow Rosenberg remaining within this avenging angel.  
  
"Your time is done, Glory," the witch intoned. "You can't use the Key, and we won't let you desecrate Buffy's body any longer. I will cast your soul out of this body, and into the lowest pit of Hell!"  
  
"N-nice t-try, little wiccan!" Glory strained against the power Willow was channeling. "But this...this body is mine!" With a primal scream, Glory stood up, marshalling her own energies against Willow. With a supreme effort, the insane goddess channeled her own growing powers against Willow's soul-fire spell. The arcane energy fed back into Willow, knocking her off her feet. Giles and Xander rushed to her side, praying that she wasn't injured by the backlash of power. The three of them stared, horrified, at the monster who wore the body of their friend.  
  
"You-you hurt me." Glory spoke, almost chattily, to the young woman. "I gotta say, I'm impressed. Over ten thousand years on this little dirtball, and no one managed to cause me as much pain as you did. Bravo, red, bra-friggin'-vo!" She clapped her hands three times, smiling toothily. "Of course, I'll have to return the favor. Don't worry, this will hurt a lot." She reached out to Willow's head, a gleam in her eyes making the girl think of a wolf about to make the kill.  
  
She offered a prayer to her Goddess, asking for the repose of her soul and the well being of Tara, when she felt it. A stirring, an awakening power within her, a power that slept until now. A familiar power, one she only felt once before. She glanced at Giles and Xander briefly, and from their expressions, she received a silent conformation. With a strange certainty, Willow knew what she had to do.  
  
As Glory's fingers brushed against her forehead, Willow linked hands with Giles and Xander. She could feel Glory's power entering her, corrupting her mind.   
  
She felt her mind slipping away, behind the dark veil of Glory's influence. This is what Tara went through, she realized with a terrifying clarity. But the process wasn't complete, and while Willow's mind was still her own, she could act. She focused hard, and felt the minds of Giles and Xander bolstering her. She knew that this desperate gambit had a chance. She channeled her mind into one last plea to the Goddess;  
  
"The power of the Slayer and all who wield it, last to ancient first, we invoke thee! Grant us thy domain and primal strength! Accept us in the power we possess! Make us mind and heart and spirit joined! Let the hand encompass us! Do thy will!"  
  
There should have been a thunderclap. Graham, who watched silently by the sedated babbling idiot that had been his comrade in arms, thought that there should have been thunder, lightning, some discharge of power to accompany the figures of Willow, Xander, Giles and the reanimated Buffy as they all collapsed. He had no idea of what was going on, but a dread certainty told him that when the others regained consciousness, the fate of all that existed would be decided.  
  
He glanced at Spike, who just watched dumbly as it happened. The vampire just shrugged his shoulders. "Don't look at me, Mate," he said. "I just work here."  
  
Not knowing what else to do, he dragged Riley to his feet and hefted him onto an empty gurney. "You want to help me here, Spike?"  
  
"Why?" Spike asked innocently. "After all he did, why should I lift a finger on his behalf?"  
  
"Because he's dangerous to himself and others in this state," Graham answered impatiently. "At least he isn't in danger of a court-martial for desertion just yet. No court in the world would believe he is competent enough to stand trial."  
  
"Why not just pop the sod?" Spike asked nonchalantly as Graham finished restraining Riley's body. "It's not like he's any good for anyone now."  
  
"He's still my friend!" Graham shouted. "I owe him that much!" Lowering his voice, he added, "Besides, he's not getting off that easy. He's going to be treated for his insanity, and then, once he's recovered, he'll be court-martialed for desertion." Dropping his voice to an ominous monotone, he added, "And in all likelihood, he'll rot in a military prison."  
  
"Right, mate," Spike harrumphed, "assuming, of course, that the world doesn't go 'poof' in the next five minutes or so."  
  
Just before he finished strapping Riley onto the gurney, Graham stood beside Dawn's body, waiting for her to awaken. "Whatever you just did, Willow," he said solemnly, "I hope you succeed. For all our sakes."  
  
"You said it, Brother," Spike added.  
  
  



	8. Mindscape

  
  
Chapter eight  
Mindscape  
  
"Leave your cares behind,  
Come with us and find  
The pleasures of a journey to the Center of the Mind!  
  
Come along if you care,  
Come along if you dare,  
Take a ride to the land inside of your mind!  
  
Beyond the seas of thought,  
Beyond the realm of what,  
Beyond the streams of hopes and dreams where things are really hot!  
  
Come along if you care,  
Come along if you dare,  
Take a ride to the land inside of your mind!"  
-The Amboy Dukes  
"Journey to the Center of the Mind"  
  
  
White.  
  
That's the only description of the landscape. White.  
  
No ground below or sky above. Neither landmarks, nor ranges, nor horizons. No depth, height or breadth. Nothing at all, save for the constant and unrelenting white.  
  
It was here, in this unknown expanse, where four disoriented figures found themselves. Three of them were long-time allies. The other one was their enemy.  
  
That was understating the matter. The fourth figure was the enemy of the world. Of all that lived.  
  
The evil one stood up, although direction was a relative thing in this strange environment, and examined herself. She seemed to recall that she had been wearing gauze wrappings around her body, but now was clad in a red silk dress. Yes, she mused, more my style. She looked around, and pondered; "Now, where the Sam Hill am I?"  
  
The three others stirred, slowly raising their bodies to a standing position, and looking around them. "You guys okay?" the young dark haired man asked.  
  
"Uh," the redheaded woman answered, "I'll get back to you on that. Next question, where are we?"  
  
"My first guess would be," the older sandy-haired one answered, "in a great deal of trouble!" The evil one had seen the other three and now flew at them in an insane rage, her object their destruction.  
  
"Scatter!" Willow shouted, and the others complied quickly. Glory followed Willow as the other two regrouped. Willow fought back against the mad goddess, and seemed to be holding her own, at least for a while.  
  
"Okay, Giles," Xander said hurriedly, "whatever explanation you have, make it quick!"  
  
"I'm not entirely certain," Giles admitted quickly. "Just before Glory could destroy her mind, Willow was able to recite the Enjoining spell, so I must assume that the spell brought us here."  
  
"Yeah," Xander nodded. "But why'd it bring Psycho-Bitch here?"  
  
Giles pondered for all of a second, before it hit him with a sudden clarity; "No, Xander, the spell didn't bring her here. It brought us to her! The enjoining spell was meant to combine our strengths with Buffy's, to allow Buffy's mind to absorb our might. We must be within Buffy's mind!"  
  
Xander breathed a low whistle. "Well, just when you thought you've seen it all! So, what do we do now?"  
  
Giles regarded the battle between Willow and Glory with a growing fire. "We oust the squatter."  
  
"Best idea I heard all day!" Xander rushed toward the madwoman, with Giles close behind.  
  
========   
  
"Nice move, Red," Glory grimaced as she jabbed her fist into Willow's midsection. The wiccan winced in pain but still absorbed the impact, and returned a hard chop to Glory's solar plexus. "But you're outmatched here. This is my mind now, and you're in it!"  
  
"Wrong, you monster!" Willow spat back, as she tossed a quick energy-release spell to knock Glory back. "You've stolen this mind, this body! We're taking it back!"  
  
"Oh yeah? Come on and try it!" Glory pressed her attack, hitting Willow from all directions at once. "I'm in control here, sweetie! What I think…" she split herself into two separate bodies, and they both spoke, "…happens!"  
  
Xander grabbed one of the two bodies, while Giles knocked the other form on the ground with a well-placed roundhouse kick. "Did you think of that one, Glory-Girl?" Xander shouted.  
  
"We won't let you win, Glory!" Giles intoned angrily. "You've caused too much grief as it is, we won't allow you to cause any more!"  
  
"Ah, and you're going to stop me, how?" Glory laughed, as another copy of her body pulled Xander away, knocking him on his butt. "You don't seem to get the underlying concept here, so let me spell it out in simple words." She split herself into ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred bodies, all intent on the destruction of the three interlopers. "This is my mind, now! I'm in charge! Whatever I desire, I create. And what I desire most of all…" Her dopplegangers slowly advanced on the three of them, as they backed away in growing terror, "…is to see the Slay-bitch's closest friends suffer, before I take them out of the picture once and for all!"  
  
The clone army overwhelmed the three opponents quickly enough, and soon had them bound hand and foot. "Yeah, I'm the Goddess here! My body, my mind, my world!" The pure white mindscape suddenly darkened, warped, contorted, twisted into a hellish landscape. Gouts of flame illuminated the distance, and vast crevasses of lava divided the land around them.  
  
"Welcome to my world, people! Coming soon to a world near you!" At the snap of her fingers, the ground below the three erupted, sending them falling, spiraling into the abyss. Willow and Xander didn't bother to speak as they fell, they simply knew that this was their end. There was literally nothing beneath them, the fall would be endless.  
  
"I don't think so," Giles whispered, and suddenly the fall ceased. The three friends hovered over the nothingness below, suspended by whatever unknown force governed this strange world. The landscape shifted again, and the three of them found themselves standing again in front of an enraged Glory.  
  
"Okay, I'm stumped here," she growled, "you were supposed to fall into the Pit of Despair!"  
  
"Did she say, 'Pit of Despair'?" Xander chuckled, ignoring Glory entirely. "Geez, what a drama queen!"  
  
"I think she lifted that from the movie 'Labyrinth'," Willow added.  
  
"Perhaps," Giles suggested, "she's not so much in control of this environment as she would think!"  
  
"THAT'S IT!" Glory shouted, her voice rolling over the surrealist ever-shifting horizons. "I won't have you talking about me in the third person IN MY OWN MIND!" She threw blasts of lightning at the three of them, sending them scattering. Lava bursts and avalanches divided them as they scrambled pell-mell away from the onslaught.  
  
Xander grabbed Willow before a shower of debris could flatten her, while Giles rushed ahead of them. "Quickly, people," he shouted. "This way!" He led the others to a rude cave in the distance. They had to duck low, and run in a zigzag pattern to reach the cave, to avoid Glory's assault as she literally threw the entire land at them. Running for what seemed an eternity, their legs threatening to buckle, their lungs burning from breathing the sulphurous air around them, the three managed to reach the cave before Glory could unleash another volley of destruction on their heads.  
  
Giles ushered Willow and Xander into the cave, and hurriedly ran after them before a sudden cave-in closed the entrance. Xander turned back, unable to see behind him in the rapidly-dimming light. "Great," he lamented. "we got a choice of suffocating or getting slaughtered by Psycho-bitch-from-Hell!"  
  
"Perhaps not, Xander," Giles replied calmly, pointing ahead. "Look over there." Xander and Willow peered ahead of them and saw what Giles saw. A faint glow appeared ahead of them, with a promise of warmth. "Come on," Giles led the others toward the light.  
  
The passageway through the cave was narrow and damp, with an unnerving dripping sound echoing through the air around them. They made their way through the slippery slopes of the cavern, until they reached a widening chamber in the bowels of the cave. The chamber's ceiling was high and curved, with stalactites dangling over their heads ominously. An enormous bonfire lit the center of the cave, casting baleful shadows over the dark rock walls.   
  
A lone figure sat staring into the fire, poking at it gingerly with a hardened stick. The others approached the fire carefully; they couldn't be certain that this was another of Glory's illusions. The figure was crouched by the fire, tending it with care, almost a religious reverence. She wore scant rags, her appearance primitive, her posture predatory. As the others moved closer to her, they could see her features more clearly. Her face, body and hair were caked with mud and her brow was sloped. But her eyes were obsidian spheres, shining with a warrior's strength, containing a fire born of anger, of resolve and righteous purpose.   
  
The three friends knew her. They knew her very well indeed. The Primal Slayer.  
  
The Slayer sat, scribbling in the ground at her feet with her stick, scratching out crude yet recognizable signs in the fire's ashes. She seemed not to notice the interlopers that stood over her, and they kept their silence, afraid to disrupt her work.  
  
Suddenly she turned, and regarded her guests with a harsh gaze. She grunted at them, her gravelly voice saying simply, "Death was her gift."  
  
She pointed her stick at Giles, jabbing him in the ribs, then pointed the stick at an image she had scratched in the ground; a picture of a head. She grunted, assuming that Giles would understand. She then pointed her stick at Xander, then at a picture of a heart. Finally, she pointed at Willow, and at a picture of a pair of wings. "Your gifts," she enunciated haltingly.  
  
Giles looked at the images, crude representations of abstract ideas… then the connection was made. "My God…" he whispered, then fell back. Willow and Xander rushed to steady him, but he managed not to faint. "My God," he repeated, "it's all clear now!"  
  
"Uh," Xander asked hurriedly, "for the benefit of those of us who forgot our window cleaner, care to explain that one?"  
  
"It's her psyche," Giles intoned. "And we're a part of it. We're not who we think we are."  
  
Willow and Xander stared at Giles blankly. "Uh, if we're not who we think we are, then who are we?"  
  
"I call dibs on Tom Cruise," Xander quipped nervously. Giles shot him a withering glance, convincing him to be silent.  
  
"The Slayer knew," Giles rushed to explain, in as simple a way as he could, a mind-boggling concept. "We're inside of Buffy, inside of her psyche. The pictures the Slayer showed us…a head, a heart and wings. Mind, heart and spirit."  
  
"The dreams," Willow suddenly remembered. "She took those things from us a year ago, then just yesterday…she returned them. Saying she'd be back for them."  
  
"And this is how she collects," Xander whistled in awe. "But one thing, Giles. If you're her mind, Willow's the spirit and I'm the heart, where are the real us? I mean, the real Giles, Willow and me?"  
  
"Probably unconscious in the Initiative bunker," Giles answered. "What matters now is that we are not complete in and of ourselves, but part of something greater. We're part of the Slayer."  
  
"No," the Primal Slayer shook her head and barked again. "No…I'm the Slayer. You," she extended her hand gently toward Willow, then waved her hand toward the others, "you are something more. You…are Buffy."  
  
After ten seconds, Willow could say only two words, which eloquently summed up the emotions of the others; "I'm honored."  
  
The pregnant silence was broken by the distant sounds of rocks shifting against rocks. "Glory," Giles shuddered. "She's breaking in."  
  
"Come," the Slayer gestured to Giles with her hand. "Join." She held up her hands, asking Giles and Willow to take them. Giles, Willow and Xander looked into each other's eyes, wordlessly knowing what they had to do.  
  
Giles took the Slayer's right hand, as Willow took the left, and Xander held hands with the other two. They closed their eyes, and meditated quietly on one thought; the true self, the heart, mind, spirit and body joined.   
  
The Primal Slayer chanted, and the others joined in, their voices as one; "The power of the slayer and all who wield it, last to ancient first, we call to thee-"  
  
========   
  
"Okay, gang," Glory chirped happily. "Ready or not, here I come!" She strutted confidently through the cave like she was walking through her mansion. "Let's make this easy, shall we? You just line up in front of me, and I'll kill you quickly, how's that sound? Oh, hey, before I off the three of you, you want to help me with a little problem that's been nagging at me? It's about Dawn. Yeah, sweet innocent Dawnie. It seems that she's still the key, but since the Initiative gave Buffy a transfusion of Dawn's blood, I don't really need her, do I? I mean, I've got Buffy's body now, I guess that makes me the Key, don't it?" She grinned at the prospect. "So, should I just Dawnie quick or make it last, say over a few centuries of exquisite pain?" She stopped and looked around her, a satisfied expression on her face. "Yep, it's good to be the Goddess."  
  
She glanced toward the bonfire, seeing the shapes of people in its shadows. "Ah, there you guys are. I thought I'd have to hunt the whole cave for you three. Okay, who dies first?"  
  
"You do!" A shape emerged quickly from the heart of the fire. Glory had virtually no time to react, before the impact of quickly thrown punch to the chin knocked her off her feet.   
  
Glory struggled to aright herself, only to be flattened again, by a hard kick to the jaw. "Not this time, Glory-hound," the Slayer shouted. "You tried to kill my sister, my friends, my world…no more! I'm back, and I'm ready to rumble!"  
  
There was no mistaking her voice, or her appearance. Buffy Anne Summers was back, ready to fight and smelling blood. "C'mon, sister. You and me, equal terms, mano a mano. You up to it?"  
  
Glory stood before the Slayer, livid with rage. "NO!" she screamed as she lunged toward Buffy. "It's my body! You can't have it!"  
  
"Try again, Glory," Buffy dodged her clumsy attack easily. "Not much of a Goddess now, are ya?" She slammed herself hard into Glory's back before she could turn around. "That was for all the lives you destroyed!" She grabbed her by the neck and threw her hard into the wall of the cave. "That was for Tara!" She kneed Glory in the groin. "That was for making Willow cry!" She stomped hard on her chest. "That was for Dawn!" She picked up the battered form of Glory and slammed her hard onto the floor. "And that was for anyone I forgot!"  
  
Buffy stepped back and watched as Glory strained, desperately trying to regain her footing. Her body was one livid bruise, her jaw was out of alignment and several of her teeth were broken. "Come on, Goddess," Buffy taunted her. "What's the matter? Why don't you fight back? Smite me, that's what you godlike beings like to do, isn't it? Huh? Where's your omnipotence now, sister?" She lifted Glory up by the straps of her dress, and restored her to an uneasy standing position. "You have no power anymore, here or anywhere else. You've had your chance and it's long gone now. I'm in control here. It's my mind, not yours."  
  
Glory stared down at the Slayer, seeing the look of righteous wrath on her face, and for the first time in her millennia of existence, she knew absolute terror. "Wha…what are you going to do to me?"  
  
"Do?" Buffy asked, smiling with mock sweetness. "Why, I'm going to give you exactly what you want!" Buffy waved her hand, and reality around them distorted, shifted into something else. The cavern dispersed around them, and in its place stood the scaffold where Buffy last stood in life. The setting of her final stand against evil, against Glory. "Look down, Glory," Buffy commanded. "See that?" Glory cast her eyes to the ground beneath her, and saw the vortex. A pure white ball of blinding radiance, as a hundred realities converged, threatening to cancel each other out, destroying all reality in the process. "This is what you wanted, isn't it? Passage to your world?"  
  
Glory blanched in terror as she realized what Buffy had in mind. "N-no," she stammered, "it's not real. It's not real, it's not my way home!"  
  
"To Hell with you, Glory!" Buffy shouted as she shoved the defeated goddess off of the scaffold. She watched with a dark satisfaction as Glory tumbled forever, into the unholy abyss.  
  
Buffy turned away, and the scaffold around her faded into nonexistence. Her surroundings melted away, until she was left with only the ever-present white. She stood there, uncertainty weighing down on her shoulders. Her enemy was defeated, but now what happened to her? She stood alone in the middle of a vast emptiness, feeling that she was waiting for…something. But what?  
  
"Hey, friend," a strange yet familiar voice cheered from behind her. "I gotta say, it's good to see you again, Buffy." The Slayer turned around to see who was talking to her. She was about her size, slight of build, with pale skin and raven black hair. She dressed in a black strap top and leather pants, and wore a silver ankh pendant on the chain around her neck. There was an ageless quality about her, Buffy realized, but at the same time youthfulness, a spirit that she carried as well.   
  
The stranger continued; "And loved the bitch-slapping you gave Glory. Man, what an ego-freak! Good to see her get hers. Best show I've seen since I first saw 'Mary Poppins'. Back during its first run, at Radio City Music Hall. That's when they knew how to present a movie, not like today with those multiplexes at the mall. Anyway, great to see you in action again. I'd shake your hand, but I don't think you'd want that."  
  
"You know me?" Buffy questioned the young woman. "Have we met?"  
  
"Met?" the dark haired woman laughed merrily, as though she had heard a funny joke. "We know each other intimately, Buffy Summers. For the last five years, you and I have been unofficial partners. I'm your gift, Buffy. I'm Death."  



	9. Death and the Maiden

Chapter Nine  
Death and the Maiden  
  
"The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."  
—Attributed to Mark Twain  
  
"I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life."  
—Deuteronomy 30:19  
  
When she was six years old, Buffy Summers had her first encounter with death.  
  
She was on her way home from school, skipping merrily. She had the power of her youth   
on her side, an invincible shield against the terrors of the real world. She had gotten a   
gold star on her math assignment, had finally mastered her seven times tables, and rushed   
home happily to display her accomplishment to her parents.   
  
Just as she rounded the corner to her house and was about to jump up the front porch   
steps, something caught her eye. She turned around, and shuddered at the sight of a dead   
cat in the street, apparently the victim of a hit-and-run. The cat's eyes were bulging out   
of its skull, and what fur on it that wasn't flattened by a tire was matted with blood.  
  
Buffy gazed intently at the sight, unable to turn away. Her six-year-old heart went out to   
the unfortunate creature, and she felt an indescribable sorrow that the cat would no longer   
run and play in a world that was made for such as him.  
  
The spell was broken when her mother called her name. She turned around and slowly   
made her way home. Somehow her gold star didn't seem important anymore. Her   
mother sensed her deep sorrow, gave her some ice cream and made Buffy's pain   
disappear, if only for a while.   
  
Two years later, her cousin and closest friend Celia died, under mysterious   
circumstances. She recalled sitting in the hospital, knowing that Celia was lost to her but   
not understanding why. That was her first brush with the idea of death, her first   
realization that life, all life, someday ends. She saw death as a thing to be hated, a thing   
to be avoided.  
  
That was her real thought of death until after she turned fifteen. Then a strange old man   
visited her high school and told her that she was destined to fight the vampires and   
demons of the night. Shortly after, her life became filled with death. Her friends died.   
Merrick died. Hundreds more would have died, but for her actions.  
  
Shortly after that, something else died. Her home, her parent's marriage, her father's   
love for her. All of that had died.  
  
Now she saw death as an adversary, something to be fought and defeated. A conqueror,   
whose victories against humanity were what she was put on this earth to prevent.  
  
Then came Sunnydale. The home of Death.  
  
Jesse died. Mr. Flutie died. Jenny died. Kendra died. All because she didn't act fast   
enough.  
  
She faced Celia's killer, the thing called die Kinderstod, and thought she had achieved a   
victory over death. But that victory was illusory. Death still struck her, hard and often.  
  
Allan Finch died, and his killer just said, "No, you don't get it; I don't care."  
  
Her classmates died by the score at their graduation, before she could defeat the monster   
that had been Mayor Richard Wilkins.  
  
Death after death, corpse upon corpse, and all Buffy could do was maintain a running   
tally.  
  
Death was now the one constant in her life. Angel left her because he wanted to protect   
her. Riley left her because he wanted to hurt her. Willow and Xander were still there,   
but they had their own lives and loves to keep them occupied. Only death remained. The   
one constant, the one companion she could count on.  
  
Then her mother, the woman who consoled her with ice cream after she witnessed that   
first death, she died.  
  
A dead man with a British accent and an attitude told her that death was her art. A spirit   
in the desert told her that death was her gift.  
  
She finally decided that death was what she wished for, more than she wanted anything   
else. A cessation of pain, an end to the misery of a life she no longer desired. The fact   
that her death would allow the only people who mattered to her to live beyond her, that   
was just an added consideration.  
  
Now she knew what death really was. She was standing in front of Death. She was a   
raven-haired, goth dressed girl with pale skin and a warm smile. This wasn't how she   
imagined it.  
  
"You're Death?" Buffy asked the mysterious woman. The ageless one nodded quietly.   
"Whoa. Not what I was expecting, really."  
  
"Let me guess," Death quipped, fingering her ever-present ankh pendant. "Something in   
a rotting skeleton in a tattered black sackcloth robe, carrying a scythe, sort of a Grim   
Reaper motif?" She chuckled brightly. "Sister, I pretty much gave up that look after the   
Black Plague. Word of advice, sackcloth is not something you want to wear on a regular   
basis." With a gesture, two chairs and a table materialized from the substance of Buffy's   
mindscape. "Sit, relax, take a load off. We need to talk before you go." She sat in one   
of the chairs, and bade Buffy join her.  
  
"Go?" Buffy asked hesitantly as she took her seat. Death seemed amused at Buffy's   
confusion. "Go where?"  
  
"Well, that's up to you, isn't it?" Death nodded once, and two hi-ball glasses appeared on   
the table, each with a black straw. Death took one of the glasses and sipped daintily at   
her drink. Noticing that Buffy hadn't touched hers, Death assured her; "Don't worry,   
that's not part of the process."  
  
"What is it?"  
  
Death smiled. "Whatever you want it to be, Buffy. It's your mind." Buffy hesitantly   
took the glass in her hand and risked a sip at the straw. Diet cola danced on her tongue at   
the first sip. Buffy relaxed slightly, accepting the familiarity of her favorite drink.   
  
"Somehow I never pictured Death as being so…friendly," Buffy made a wry face at the   
entity.  
  
Death arched her eyebrow at the Slayer. "A fellow by the name of Walt Whitman said it   
best when he said that death was different than anything that you could imagine, and   
luckier. I'm not what anyone pictures me to be. I'm who I am. I'm a process, nothing   
more. When the first life came into being, I was there waiting for it. When the last life in   
the universe dies, my work will be finished. I'll put the chairs on the tables, turn out the   
lights and lock the universe behind me as I leave."  
  
The Slayer sat quietly as she digested these words. She knew she was dead, she hadn't   
survived the final fall, so this seemed strangely normal, this conversation with Death.   
"So," Buffy asked. "What do we need to talk about?"  
  
"Oh, my favorite subject, life," Death mused almost dreamily. "Your life, in particular.   
Y'see, two months ago, your soul passed from the material world. But circumstances   
have conspired to present you with something I never give anyone. A second chance."  
  
"Your soul, Buffy, is very powerful, like all Slayers. That sort of power can sometimes   
take on a life of its own. When your soul departed from your body, it was fragmented,   
split into three. Each component of your soul fell into the keeping of one of your   
friends."  
  
"Giles, Xander and Willow," Buffy mused. "The Enjoining spell."  
  
"Told you, your soul is a powerful thing. Powerful enough to seek its own survival, even   
when the body is pretty much trashed. After that, our soldier boys in the Initiative   
managed to pull off its little Frankenstein project with your corpse. The pieces were in   
place, they just have to be brought together."  
  
Buffy barked a sarcastic laugh. "So in spite of my best efforts, I'm still alive?"  
  
"Not now," Death explained. "Not dead either. You're at a crossroads." She let the   
words hang over the table. Buffy weighed and measured each word, praying that her   
next question would not be a mistake.   
  
Finally she steeled herself, and asked; "So, am I going to live?"  
  
"It's entirely your call, Buffy." Death folded her hands on her lap and leaned forward.   
"Free will and all that. It's your choice, live or die.   
  
"To be or not to be," Buffy whispered to herself. "That is the question."  
  
"Whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,"   
Death continued, "or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them.   
Shakespeare knew what he was talking about, didn't he? Of course, by 'take arms', ol'   
Bill meant to commit suicide. A lot of people don't know that. I always got the   
impression that you weren't the take-arms type of person. That's why I like you so   
much.  
  
"I doubt you're aware of this, but we have something of a special partnership. I am the   
process, the passage from one state of being to another. But there are forces that work   
against that process, that work against death. Unnatural forces. Forces like vampirism.   
They work against me, against death. That's where you come in. To prevent this   
perversion, the Slayers came into being. To prevent the deaths of innocents, and to   
assure that those who were turned into vampires completed the process of their deaths.   
Vampirism cheats death, and I don't like to be cheated."  
  
"So my job, in essence," Buffy frowned, "is to kill."  
  
"No, to slay," Death corrected. "To finish the process. Those poor souls were already   
dead, their bodies just didn't know it. Their bodies still kept a portion of their souls   
anchored to the physical world, and prevent them from travelling to the next world."  
  
"So there is a next world?" Buffy grasped at this straw desperately. Death just gave her a   
'you-know-I-can't-tell-you' look. "Sorry, I just needed to know…"  
  
"Don't be sorry," Death smiled. "That's the nature of humanity. The need to know   
what's next. Well, I could tell you what lies beyond life, but then you would have made   
your choice in favor of death. I can tell you that you mother is happy, and at peace."   
Buffy felt her shoulders sag as an unknown tension revealed itself by its sudden absence.   
A terrible burden left her, and she felt infinitely lighter as a result.  
  
"I know about Spike," Death commented, "I remember what he told you, about how   
every Slayer has a death-wish. In a way he was right. Not a wish to die, but a wish to   
know what happens when you die. A need to know. Of course, you have that in   
common with most of the rest of your race. It's just that in your case, death is a more   
prevalent force in your life, so naturally it's going to be on your mind more."  
  
Buffy sipped drink again, considering what was being offered. A return to her life. But   
was that what she wanted?  
  
"I know what you're thinking, Buffy," Death observed. "You haven't had an easy life   
before this point. And I can't promise that you're gonna have it any easier if you choose   
to live again. You'd have to take that up with my brother Destiny, and I wouldn't   
recommend it. The guy's a real bring-down boy." She leaned forward in her chair, her   
gaze commanding Buffy's attention. "All I can tell you is this; whatever happens from   
the point of your decision, that's up to you. No matter what the Council of Watchers   
says, no matter what pressures your calling as the Slayer places on you, in the end your   
life is just that. Yours."  
  
"Hmph," Buffy mused. "What about my gift? My death was my gift."  
  
"You got that wrong, friend. Death wasn't your gift. Your life was your gift. You gave   
your life for your friends, for your sister, for your world. Death may have been your gift,   
but it certainly wasn't your only gift." She leaned back in her chair and sipped her drink   
again. "Well, now you have new gifts. Your soul, bright and vibrant, is your gift. Your   
heart is your gift. You are your gift. Just don't be so stingy with those gifts." Buffy   
smiled ruefully at Death's words.   
  
A memory came to the Slayer, unbidden but nonetheless welcome. A sweet and smiling   
Willow, happily announcing her plans to remain in Sunnydale after graduation, to support   
Buffy in her war against the dark. "It's a good fight," she said then, "and I want in."  
  
"It's still a good fight," Death observed, a knowing look in her eyes.  
  
"Yeah," Buffy admitted. "And I still want in."  
  
"Then the choice is made," Death stood up in her seat and started to walk away. "Good   
luck, Slayer."  
  
"Hey," Buffy called out to the departing figure. "Will I see you again?"  
  
Death turned her head back toward Buffy, and smiled. "Someday, Buffy Summers, you   
will see me again. Then, I will tell you everything. Take care." The Endless one turned   
away and faded from Buffy's sight.  
  
========   
  
Dawn stirred on her gurney, becoming vaguely aware of her surroundings. She first   
noticed the restraints that bound her to the gurney, then saw Spike standing over her,   
loosening her bonds. "Hey, Niblet," the vampire spoke as soothingly as he knew how.   
"You okay?"  
  
"Uh, yeah, I guess so," Dawn sat up as the strap over her chest was released. She shook   
her head, struggling to shake off the effects of whatever sedatives were used on her.   
"What happened, Spike?"  
  
"Someone used you for an evil experiment," Graham answered. "The Initiative…" he   
hesitated, unsure how the young girl would take what had happened. "They tried to   
reanimate your sister's body." He stopped talking and gauged the growing shock and   
disgust on Dawn's face. He understood that expression, for he shared her disgust for ever   
being part of the Initiative. If they could desecrate the body of a hero…  
  
The others started to awaken slowly, first Willow, then Giles and Xander. "Wha—what   
happened?" Willow asked as she shook off the effects of Glory's attack. "Where's   
Glory? Where are the others?"  
  
"We're right here," Giles murmured. "But if someone would kindly shut off the Iron   
Maiden concert in my head…"  
  
"Yeah, tell me about it," Xander complained wearily. He and the others glanced around,   
and found Buffy's body sprawled on the floor. He stepped back slowly, warning the   
others away. "Back off, guys, we don't know what'll happen next."  
  
"What do you mean, Xander?" Dawn asked frantically. "What did they do to Buffy?"  
  
Giles stammered quietly, carefully considering his reply. Before he could speak, the   
slayer's body started to move. She slowly rose from the floor to a standing position, and   
opened her eyes. The others stood back, ready for anything.  
  
Her eyes rested on her friends, on Willow and Dawn especially, and she smiled. Her   
smile wasn't the terrifying grin of the deranged goddess, but the warm, caring smile of   
their protector, defender and friend.   
  
There was no logical reason for anyone in the room to believe this, but somehow they   
knew the truth, beyond any doubt.  
  
Dawn was the first person to speak after a minute's shocked silence. "Buffy?" she   
whispered. "Is that you?"  
  
"It's me, Dawnie," Buffy assured her.  
  
The slayer's sister launched herself into Buffy's arms, nearly knocking her onto her butt,   
and hugged her fiercely. She wept openly, gladly, as she relished this contact with her   
sister. Buffy clung to her sister just as fiercely, tears of joy staining her face as well.   
Soon, as though released from a spell, Willow, Xander and Giles approached the two   
sisters, and Buffy opened her arms to them as well.  
  
Spike hung back, watching the reunion of old friends. He simply nodded his   
acknowledgment of Buffy's return with a smirk on his face. But he wasn't fooling   
anyone present; he was as glad to see Buffy's return as anyone else.  
  
Graham said nothing as this strange family simply held each other, restoring that precious   
connection that had been lost to them before. There would be time later for Buffy and the   
others to deal with the realities of her temporary demise. There would be time later for   
him to deal with Riley Finn's imminent court-martial, and the final dismantling of the   
Initiative. For now, it was enough to know that their friend had been returned to them.  
  
Buffy Summers had returned.  
  



	10. Bright Side of the Road

Chapter Ten  
Bright Side of the Road  
  
  
  
One month later;  
  
"Yes!" Willow shouted triumphantly as she sat at her computer at the Magic Box.   
"Buffy Summers is alive and well!"  
  
"We know that," Tara smiled as she leaned forward on Willow's shoulders. "Remember,   
that situation with Riley Finn last month? We've been celebrating her return ever since."  
  
"Funny, babe," Willow stuck her tongue out at her lover. "I meant in the legal sense."   
She showed Tara the screen. "I just hacked into public records, and changed her legal   
status so she's no longer dead. Erased all her death certificates, her autopsy report, all   
that. I also located her birth certificate, and arranged for a notarized copy to be mailed to   
her house so she can apply for a driver's license, and I even had the title deed for her   
home signed over to her."  
  
"Not bad, hacker girl," Tara leaned in and kissed Willow's cheek.  
  
"Not a perfect hacking job, I'm afraid," Willow admitted. "I wasn't able to rescue her   
bank account, or the trust fund her mom set up for her. All that money went over to   
Dawn's trust fund when Buffy was first declared dead."  
  
"Hey, she'll be okay," Tara assured Willow. "And with you moving into her house once   
college starts up, you'll be able to help out."  
  
"Yeah," Willow smirked slightly. "Practically had to twist her arm to convince her to let   
me pay rent, but she still needs the money. At least until she can get a job. But she'll be   
okay."  
  
"Speaking of which," Tara heard the door-chimes jangle as the shop's front door was   
opened, and noticed Buffy and Dawn as they entered the shop. They seemed to be   
arguing about something.  
  
Willow and Tara left the backroom to greet their friends. "Hey Buff, Dawnie, what's   
up?"  
  
"Buffy made me watch the most disgusting movie I ever saw," Dawn complained   
dramatically.  
  
"Oh?" Willow's interest was piqued. "Which movie was that?"  
  
"It's called 'Harold and Maude'," Buffy explained, "and it wasn't disgusting at all. It   
was one of Mom's favorites and we still had the video, so I decided to check it out."  
  
"Buffy, it was gross!" Dawn shrieked.  
  
"Harold and Maude?" Tara smiled. "I loved that movie. Remember, Willow, we saw   
that at the revival house in San Francisco just before we started our sophomore classes."  
  
"Yeah, with Ruth Gordon as the kindly old woman who taught that kid about life,"   
Willow continued.  
  
Dawn just looked at the other two women with shock in her eyes. "Are you kidding?   
The movie had an eighteen-year-old boy having sex with an eighty-year-old woman!"  
  
Buffy shook her head, amused at her sister's overreaction. "Dawn, the movie wasn't   
about that. It was about how Ruth Gordon taught the boy to shake off his obsession with   
death and embrace life."  
  
"Yeah," Dawn continued, "but he had sex with an eighty-year-old woman."  
  
"Hey," Buffy reminded her sister, "you didn't object to that one movie where the guy had   
sex with a pie!"  
  
"That was different," Dawn amended hastily, as Tara and Willow started to giggle. "That   
was just dumb comedy. And say, now that I think about it, don't you think that Michelle   
in that movie looks an awful lot like—"  
  
"Uh, Buffy," Willow squeaked, hoping to deflect Dawn's interest. "You wanna check   
this out?" She took Buffy and Dawn into the back room and directed their attention to   
the computer. "I've been going into hacker mode here, and managed to legally resurrect   
you. Now you can get a driver's license, and you now own your house." Buffy sat at the   
computer and perused the records that Willow had edited. She still didn't understand half   
of what she saw on the screen, but took Willow's assurances at face value.  
  
"Great, now all I have to do is get a job," Buffy smiled at her friend.  
  
"I'm sure Giles can find a position here in the Magic Box," Tara offered.  
  
"Thanks, Tara," Buffy replied. "But I want to get a job on my own. Still, the Box can be   
my plan B." She stood up from her seat at the computer, and announced, "Hey girls, can   
you close up for lunch or something? I've got something to show you."  
  
"Sure," Tara smiled. She and Willow joined Buffy and Dawn, Tara taking the time to set   
up the 'Closed, back in 30 minutes' sign in the window and locking the door.  
  
========   
  
The cemetery wasn't quite where Willow envisioned herself at the moment, but Buffy   
seemed genuinely pleased about something here. Willow was especially curious as to   
why Buffy had chosen to lug a portable CD player with her.  
  
They stopped at an all-too-familiar stone. Buffy glanced at the stone's inscription,   
fighting back the shudder of seeing her own name engraved on the stone. "She saved the   
world a lot," she read the epitaph, a sardonic smile on her face. "Let me guess, Wills,   
your idea?"  
  
"Well," Willow blushed crimson, "Xander and I worked on it together."  
  
"Hey, short and sweet, I like it," Buffy assured her friend with a smile. "Anyway, it'll be   
going down tomorrow. I spoke with the funeral director, and he agreed to remove the   
empty coffin and the stone." She glanced at her mother's stone, which stood alongside   
her own. "I'm thinking of planting a tree here. Maybe something in a nice shade tree. I   
think mom would like that."  
  
"I know she would approve," Tara nodded.  
  
"Yeah," Willow agreed. "Maybe a sycamore, or something like that."  
  
"Yeah," Buffy mused silently. "Well, anyway, before they come in to remove the grave,   
I wanted to do something, and this is my only chance." She placed the CD player on the   
ground by the gravesite, and pressed play. She turned to the others, smiled, extended her   
arms, and said, "Let's dance!"  
  
A bright, upbeat melody filled the air, and Van Morrison started to sing;  
  
From the dark end of the street  
To the bright side of the road  
We'll be lovers once again on the  
Bright side of the road   
  
Little darlin', come with me  
Won't you help me share my load  
From the dark end of the street  
To the bright side of the road   
  
Willow and Tara exchanged puzzled looks at first, but as Buffy took Dawn in her arms   
and began dancing with abandon over her own grave, they began to understand. Buffy,   
in this strange way, was her way of reaffirming her life. Willow took Tara's hand, and   
they joined Buffy and Dawn on the small plot of land, dancing together.  
  
Into this life we're born  
Baby sometimes we don't know why  
And time seems to go by so fast  
In the twinkling of an eye   
  
Let's enjoy it while we can  
Won't you help me sing my song  
From the dark end of the street  
To the bright side of the road   
  
Buffy glanced briefly at her friends, as they enjoyed each other's company and closeness.   
She knew that in a few days Tara would begin her classes at Berkeley College and   
Willow would miss her while she was gone. And soon Buffy would have to start Slaying   
again. And life, whatever it was in the Hellmouth, would go on.  
  
But now she had a fuller understanding about her life. About life in general. Death may   
have been her gift before, but death, in the end, was a part of her greater gift. Life was   
her gift now. She would gladly give it in protection of her friends if it came to that. But   
until then, she intended to share that gift with her friends, and not shut herself off from   
them.  
  
Buffy, for the first time in such a long time, was truly alive. And she intended to stay that   
way, no matter what the world threw at her.  
  
Buffy lived.  
  
From the dark end of the street  
To the bright side of the road  
We'll be lovers once again  
On the bright side of the road  
We'll be lovers once again on the bright side of the road  
  



	11. Places of Origin ¥By Mad-Hamlet¤

Epilogue;  
Places of Origin  
By Mad-Hamlet  
  
  
  
When she lifted her head up she found she way lying on grass.  
  
"Ooh nooo." She moaned. "Grass stains! They'll never come out!"   
  
With a sigh Glory pulled herself to a seating position. She began brushing off what dirt   
and grime she could but wasn't having a lot of luck.   
  
"Super strength, speed, toughness…sure but can I get dirt out? Feh, not a chance." She   
kept brushing ineffectively at the mud and grass. "This outfit is a total loss." She moaned.   
"But hey! That means I can get another. Yeah, that's cool."  
  
"Just...as soon as I find a mall." She looked around, only then realizing she was not alone.   
Surrounding her stood three ...people. Sort of.   
  
The one to her left looked like a scarecrow. In fact he was a scarecrow. Dressed in   
banged up overalls, a flannel shirt and heavy boots. His hands were sticks tied together   
with unraveling twine, and his head...his head was a pumpkin. He was also smoking a   
cigar and leering at her. How a pumpkin would leer remains a mystery but it was a leer.   
From a pumpkin. Smoking a cigar.   
  
The one to her right looked far more normal. Other than the white hair, pale skin, and   
sunglasses. A black t-shirt was stretched over a well muscled, but slim, frame. His blue   
jeans were spotless ending just above the ankle, revealing the bottoms of black, steel   
tipped cowboy boots.   
  
His white hair was pulled into a ponytail that hung down to the small of his back while   
the sunglasses completely concealed his eyes. He wasn't looking at her though, just   
scuffling the toe of one boot into the earth, smoking a cigarette.  
  
But it was the one between these two others that commanded her attention.   
He was dressed similar to the white haired one. Gray t-shirt, gray jeans. Clean, if a little   
rumbled. However that was where any semblance of normalcy ended. He had white skin   
and jet black hair. Jet black, spiky hair that went every direction. That was fair enough   
though, it was his eyes that separated him from the rest, the wheat from the chaff. Old,   
black eyes stared down into hers. Perfect obsidian in every way except at their very   
center where a small speck of light did shine.   
  
He also possessed a sense of majesty, of time immeasurable about him. Yes, this was   
definitely the leader.  
  
'Suits me.' Glory thought. 'Saves me the trouble of tracking this gomer down before I   
kill him and take over.'   
  
"Welcome...Glorificus." The black-eyed man spoke quietly.  
  
"Great, you know my name." Glory said standing up, she brushed her knees off,   
examining a run in her left stocking.   
  
"Yes. We do. We did, after all, create you."   
  
"Come again?" Glory cocked an eyebrow. „News-flash bud, I'm a God. A Hellgod to be   
precise. Y'know…God. Immortal, undying, eternal. No beginning no ending. Hello? Any   
of this mean anything to you bright eyes? And I mean that in the literal sense."   
  
A small smile graced his lips. "Yes. Yes these are all true as you say, but I did create   
you."  
  
"Yeah…sure, whatever. Look, can we get to the killing now? Cause if I'm gonna take   
over…y'know...schedules etc. C'mon, chop chop." She tapped her wrist where most   
people wore a watch.  
  
The smile vanished. "Killing? Me? You really do not remember?"  
  
"Remember what?" Glory sneered. "Lets see. I recall…that I'm a Hellgod. I like to kill,   
torture, punish, burn and…Oh yes, chew with my mouth open."   
  
The pumpkin spoke. He had a gravelly coarse voice. "Sure we got the right one boss?"   
He spit the end of his cigar out.  
  
The black haired man referred to as 'boss' put a finger to him temple. "Yes...yes I'm   
sure, Merv. Still..." He turned his gaze back to Glory.  
  
"You misunderstand." He said calmly. "This is the land of Dreams. The Dreaming. I am   
its Lord. This is the place where Gods are born." He paused. "And where they come to   
die."  
  
"Die?" Glory's eyes bulged. "Gods can't die. It's part of the job description. Though I   
like the part about killing and maiming more."   
  
"Perhaps and perhaps not." Dream replied. "But this is where you are. You have   
forgotten your place Glory. I will explain. I created you. Long ago, you were a   
Nightmare; then the humans began to believe in you. This gave you power and I stepped   
aside allowing you to have your place and time. It is done now, and you can take back   
your original calling."  
  
"Huh? What?" Glory looked up from examining her nails. "Do any of you guys got a   
press-on kit?"   
  
The white haired man shook his head slightly but said nothing.   
  
"You must remember your duties Glorificus." Dream man said. "You will need to be   
retrained. My...assistant here…" And he gestured to the white haired man. "...Shall   
instruct you."  
  
"Great!" Glory chuckled. "I'll kill him first, then you, take over and have a little fun till I   
can get back to that SlayBitch!"   
  
So saying she flung herself, hands outstretched at the white haired man, intent on shoving   
her fingers into his temples and feasting on his mind.   
  
Her scream of agony surprised no one there and was swallowed up by the mists   
surrounding the small party. Sinking to her knees, Glory pulled the mangled ruin of her   
left hand to her breast. Red blood streamed down over the stubs of two fingers that had   
been severed, along her forearm to pool in the dark grass, staining a small, but growing   
circle, to that of a bright crimson.   
  
"My...fingers." She sobbed. "He...he bit off my fingers with his eyes!"  
  
The white haired man bent down and retrieved his sunglasses that had been knocked off   
in the impromptu scuffle. He smiled at her while brushing them off, almost white lips   
pulling back over even whiter teeth. Then he smiled at her with his eyes. Not like others,   
he did it literally for he had no actual eyeballs, but where they were supposed to be, he   
had teeth.   
He slipped the sunglasses back on and carefully whipped a bloodstain off his cheek with   
the back of one hand.   
  
"Yes." Dream said in a neutral tone. "The Corinthian, he is one of my more...fervent   
creations." He turned his gaze from the sobbing woman to the Corinthian. "Train her   
well, prepare for her duties but do not kill or cripple her. She is to again be a nightmare,   
not destroyed. Do you understand?"  
  
The Corinthian gave a flourished bow. "Oh yes, lord of the Dreaming." Everyone ignored   
his growled "Ponce." They'd heard it before.  
  
The Corinthian knelt down next to Glory. "Let me see that toots. C'mon, I won't hurt   
you…yet." He pulled the injured limb so he could get a closer 'look' at it. "Aww…thass   
nothing babe. You'll be fine in a jiffy. Still, I'll kiss it and make it all better."   
  
Before Glory could react he had smeared his lips bloody with the stumps.   
  
"Couldn't help myself." He grinned. "Yer just so tasty!" He licked the stumps one last   
time before standing back up.  
  
"But...but I'm a God!" Glory whimpered.   
  
"You were toots." The pumpkin smiled poking in her direction with his stogie. "Now yer   
a nightmare, a dream, again. Relax, it'll be fun, you'll get into it."  
  
The Corinthian nudged her with the toe of his right boot. "After yer... 'trainin' of course."  
He was still smiling.  
  
He stood back up. "Now missy, I like you. You got attitude. You got...gumption…you   
got...chutzpah."  
  
The pumpkin grinned around his cigar. "Chutzpah?"  
  
The Corinthian ignored him. "So…cause I like ya, and you did give me a feedin', I'll   
give you ...a ten second head start."  
  
Hiding his face in his hands the Corinthian began to count; "One Mississippi, two   
Mississippi..."  
  
Choking down another sob, Glory lurched to her feet, kicked off her high heels and made   
a break for the cover of the nearby woods that had not been there a second ago.   
  
"Corinthian." Dream said quietly, the white haired man didn't stop counting. "Make sure   
she does not, nor you, enter Fiddler's Green. He does not like others walking, or running,   
upon him."  
  
Without interrupting his count the Corinthian nodded.   
  
"...Ten Mississippi! Ready or not here I come!" With a whoop and a leap he disappeared   
into the tree line.   
  
Dream watched all this, saying nothing, though Merv had a running commentary with a   
stray daydream that had wandered by.   
  
"...give you ten to one odds she doesn't last five minutes." Dream overheard.  
  
He wouldn't take that bet.  
  
  



End file.
